Florida State University may build its own hotel in Tallahassee

 

Florida State University may build its own hotel in Tallahassee

With a hospitality college ranked seventh nationally and academic and sporting programs that bring 75,000 visitors annually to the city, Florida State University is moving forward with plans to add an “academic” hotel to its campus inventory.

The university’s Board of Trustees voted by consent last week to approve a request to include a hotel site in FSU’s master plan, which was delayed last year due to COVID planning and could take 12 months to finalize.

Approval by trustees was needed because it involves an amendment to the master plan, which serves as a blueprint for campus properties and future development.

The move also keeps alive the university’s vision to create an Arena District, expanding its footprint from downtown Tallahassee to the main campus.

“Adding an academic hotel to FSU’s operational program will allow Dedman to expand its academic offerings around hotel operations and continue to aspire higher in hospitality education,” Clark said. He noted FSU, in a typical year, “generates well over 75,000 room nights.”

FSU has been aiming to build arena district

For the past few years, FSU has been in discussions with city and county commissioners sitting as the Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency about its vision to create an arena district connecting FSU's campus to the Tucker Civic Center, of which it took ownership in 2012.

The district would consist of a convention center, a hotel, and the new location for the FSU College of Business. The university and Blueprint are still in discussions on the convention center and a formal memorandum of understanding has not been approved.

Despite that, the Blueprint agency last March committed $40 million to build the convention center, upping its original proposal by $20 million.

The plan involved Blueprint funding the design and construction of the convention center with FSU maintaining it moving forward.

But in September the Blueprint panel tapped into that bank and recommitted $10 million of that money to Florida A&M University to pay the majority costs for renovations at Bragg Memorial Stadium.

The hotel will be a public-private partnership between FSU and Development Ventures Group, Inc, (DEVEN). That partnership scenario calls for the developer partner to provide the financing and assume the risks of the project, Graham said.

DEVEN developed the $260 million Knight’s Plaza project in a public-private partnership with the University of Central Florida, according to its website. It also developed The Celeste Hotel at the entrance to UCF in partnership with Demetree Global and Pinnacle Hotel Management.

The hotel will be located on the northern side of the surface parking directly between the Turnbull Conference Center and the Tucker Civic Center.

“The hotel plan wasn’t approved (by trustees). What was approved was allowing a hotel to be constructed on university property,” Graham said. “This is the first step.”