Hotel Kirkwood at KCC

[Brady]

Looks like Kirkwood Community College is planning to build a pretty nice hotel near their campus for hands-on experience for culinary and hotel management students. It is quite rare for community colleges to own and operate their own hotels. It will be interesting to see if this are around 76th Ave SW and Kirkwood Blvd. ends up developing a little bit more. Right now it's still extremely rural with only the sprawling Kirkwood campus and some suburban housing subdivisions closer to Prairie schools.

C.R. college to build 70-room facility
Hotel Kirkwood

By David DeWitte
The Gazette
CEDAR RAPIDS — The Center for Continuing Education that opened this month at Kirkwood Community College is studentfriendly and environmentally friendly, but in two years it also will be traveler-friendly.
A project costing $22 million to $24.5 million will add a fullservice hotel, restaurant and culinary arts education facility at the southeast corner of Kirkwood Boulevard and 76th Avenue SW.
Linked by a corridor to the 43,000-square-foot continuing education center, the hotel will have about 70 rooms, including three presidential suites and three executive suites, a restaurant with indoor and outdoor dining areas, a conference room and other amenities of a full-service hotel.
Slated to go out for bids in May, the project will take about two years to complete.

It was developed to provide students in Kirkwood’s lodging management, culinary arts and restaurant management programs with hands-on experience.
Kirkwood’s full-service restaurant will move into the facility from its location in the Mansfield Center, freeing space on the main campus for more classrooms.
Culinary arts and hotel-motel management are among the hottest programs at Kirkwood, with about 180 students in culinary arts and 21 each in restaurant management and lodging management. The culinary program often faces a shortage of kitchen space that makes it hard for students to get into lab classes when they want them.
Hotels owned and operated by two-year colleges are rare. But Kirkwood, with more than 15,000 students, has a larger enrollment than some universities that operate them.
“Because of our size, we do things differently,” Kirkwood President Mick Starcevich said.
The hotel is expected to make up $10 million to $11 million of the cost, with the culinary education facilities accounting for the remaining $13 million to $14 million.
Revenue bonds will be used to finance the project over 20 years. The bonds will be paid off using the net income of the hotel and restaurant.
Starcevich said area hotel managers generally support the hotel project because it will help them overcome a shortage of trained hotel-motel management employees, while increasing the area’s room inventory by less than 3 percent.
Some area hotel managers contacted by The Gazette were not aware of Kirkwood’s plans, and some were leery of them. One that could be affected is the Clarion Hotel on 33rd Avenue SW, which gets a lot of Kirkwood’s business, Clarion General Manager Tom Zeisel received his education at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., which operates a hotel as part of its respected lodging management program. Zeisel doesn’t think it’s wrong for a college to operate a hotel, but is concerned about the size of Kirkwood’s hotel. He will be watching closely to see whether it competes with privately owned hotels.
At Cornell, Zeisel said, the hotel exists mainly to serve visitors to the university, does not advertise to the public and charges rates higher than many commercial hotels in the area.
Zeisel, who joined the Clarion last summer, said he has offered to bring Kirkwood hotelmotel students into the Clarion on a management internship basis as a partial alternative to constructing the hotel.
Starcevich said Kirkwood visitors will make up a big chunk of the bookings. Equestrian events at the Kirkwood Equestrian Center, for instance, are expected to provide a majority of the weekend bookings. During the week, the college expects to receive many of its bookings from travelers visiting businesses that operate on or near campus.
Kirkwood Community College assistant professor Lee Belfield said the idea for the hotel arose a few years ago in discussions about creating the lodging management program he leads at Kirkwood.
The concept was reviewed by an advisory committee of hotel-motel industry executives set up to advise the college and received favorable responses, he said.
Starcevich said Kirkwood researched hotels at colleges across the nation before designing the project. The concept will be modeled after the 82-room Atherton Hotel at Oklahoma State University’s Stillwater campus.
Once a humble student union hotel, the Atherton underwent a $6 million ecofriendly upgrade in 2001. It advertises itself as “Oklahoma’s premier boutique hotel.” Kirkwood’s hotel isn’t expected to operate as a franchise of a hotel chain. Rather, Kirkwood plans to create its own brand and work out a long-term relationship with a hotel chain for access to its reservation system.

[DMRyan]

Is there enough of a market for a hotel of that size around Kirkwood? The article mentions the Clarion Inn on SW 33rd as getting a lot of the Kirkwood related business, but that is quite a ways from the college. A $24 million hotel near the Kirkwood Campus sounds oversized unless it's part of a larger development that can lure more visitors than those visiting Cedar Rapids for Kirkwood College business.

[WaterlooDave]

This sounds like a community college straying too far from its mission (I am not speaking of the program but the instead hotel ownership). There have to be ample enough opportunities for partnering with area hotels to fulfill the needs of the program. Not to mention a partnering approach would allow for a broader range of experience for the students (from single star to four star hotels).

[CRUNIFan]

I suppose this is rather old news at this point. But here is a rendering of what the completed building will look like.

[Ingersoll1978]

That looks really cool.

[CRUNIFan]

Just a quick update. Construction is very much underway. Just a collection of beams and concrete at the moment, but definitely underway. I'll try and get some pictures up when it is further along.

Its location is a bit of a mystery to me. Its further off the Kirkwood campus near the College Community School District (Prairie High School) campus. So its actually quite near the airport. If they put on/off ramp on I-380 at 76th Avenue it would actually be an extremely convenient location.

[Brady]

I just began a summer job (a little late, I know) with the Kirkwood Facilities office. I haven't been out to the campus for over a year and am very impressed with the hotel progress. It is being built adjacent to a newer Kirkwood events center (which I believe is currently being used by the US courts as temp space). While the older buildings at Kwood have left much to be desired, a number of the new buildings are actually very classy - rivaling most of the newer construction going on at Iowa State. This quality design development is fantastic for both Kirkwood and Cedar Rapids. I will try to get some pictures of these newer buildings and around campus in the coming days.

[Brady]

Also -- some very impressive renderings at http://www.thehotelatkirkwood.com/

This is looking to be the most cutting edge, modern hotel in Cedar Rapids.

Does anyone know of any other examples or precedents of community / junior college - affiliated hotels like this? This seems like a pretty big deal.

[Brady]

Also -- here's a photo of the events center already completed that the new hotel will be adjacent to:


from Cedar Rapids City Assessor

[CRUNIFan]

Wow, those renderings are very impressive! Kirkwood really is an extremely progressive school. And I agree, its newer buildings are extremely nice.

[SharpHawkeye]

According to the Gazette, The Hotel at Kirkwood Center opened on Monday. The article also has a short slide show with come cool pictures.

PHOTOS: The Hotel at Kirkwood opens its doors
Posted on Jul 28, 2010 by Admin.

A new 71-room hotel at Kirkwood Community College welcomed its first guests on Monday, college officials said.
The Hotel at Kirkwood Center opened at 5 p.m. Monday. It is a teaching hotel that will provide on-the-job experience for students in the college’s hospitality and culinary arts programs.

http://gazetteonline.com/local-news/featured-local-news/2010/07/28/photos-the-hotel-at-kirkwood-opens-its-doors

Also, for more pictures and information, the hotel's website: http://www.thehotelatkirkwood.com