FIU wants hotel on campus

Conference center included in $59M plan

Florida International University is planning a $59 million hotel and conference center in hopes of attracting more researchers, conventions and out-of-town visitors.

Construction is scheduled to begin in March on the northwest corner of FIU’s main campus on Southwest Eighth Street near Sweetwater, off Florida’s Turnpike in western Miami-Dade County.

It’s expected to be ready by June 2019, with average room rates projected to start at $153 a night, according to plans.

While the Miami area has many hotels, there are few options close to the FIU cam-

pus, officials said. Visitors often stay in Coral Gables and have to spend more than an hour on the road getting to campus, said Ken Jessell, senior vice president for finance and administration.

“It’s hard to get to any hotel, much less a quality hotel,” Jessell said. “This is something that is greatly needed, not only for our students and visitors and families, but our academic programs, research programs, professional conferences and the like.”

The project includes a seven-story, 150-bed upscale hotel with a pool, fitness center, restaurant and conference center.

An $8 million, 14,000-square-foot alumni center would be housed in a separate building on the property. Jessell said that will house student and alumni mentoring services, a career center, library and lounge.

“We need a place that our 215,000 alumni can call home,” Jessell said.

The Florida Board of Governors, which makes policy for state universities, expressed mixed views at a meeting Thursday. The board is expected to decide this fall whether to approve it.

Patrica Frost, a state board member who previously served on the FIU Board of Trustees, said she recently attended a conference at the University of California-Berkeley and was impressed by its hotel and conference center.

“The place was buzzing. The faculty was great. The conference center was important as was the hotel,” she said. “I don’t know whether they were making money, but I can see where a hotel and conference center is definitely needed on a large university campus.”

With about 55,000 students, FIU is one of the five largest universities in the United States.

Other board members questioned whether the largely landlocked college should use valuable space for a building that’s not directly related to education or research.

“Obviously a lot of time has gone into this, and that’s one of my concerns,” Thomas Kuntz, chairman of the Board of Governors, told Jessell. “All the time you and others are spending on this, is time you’re taking away from the core mission, which is to become one of the greatest universities in the country.”

Several studies commissioned by FIU also raised concerns about how many guests the hotel could attract. That’s because FIU’s population was mostly local and its western location may not appeal to people who want to be near the beach or Miami tourist attractions.

The FIU project would be the first university-affiliated hotel in South Florida. Elsewhere in the state, the University of Florida in Gainesville has a hotel and conference center, while the University of Central Florida in Orlando plans to start construction on one this fall.

Florida Atlantic University officials discussed plans in 2013 for a hotel and conference center on its Boca Raton campus, but the university has yet to submit any formal plans to the state.

FAU spokesman Joshua Glanzer said the university plans to review its longterm plans for the main campus soon “and part of the planning process will include the prospects of a venue that will offer lodging and conference space.”

FIU says its project wouldn’t be a financial risk. It would be built through a public-private partnership with Arizona-based Concord Benchmark LLC, with Coral Springs-based Benchmark Management Company handling the day-today operations.

FIU “will have no financial obligation to support the hotel or conference center operations or debt obligations,” the university wrote. “FIU will not guarantee any number of room nights or any level of revenue operating support.”