Campus hotel to be completed in 2016


hotel

Progress of the new hotel continues East of Kelly/Shorts stadium on Sept. 16.

Construction of a new six-story Courtyard by Marriott hotel on Central Michigan University's campus is a year behind schedule. 

Located east of Kelly/Shorts stadium, the project was set to be completed in August 2015, but is now scheduled to open summer 2016. 

Lodgco Hospitality, a Mount Pleasant-based company, will fund the project, which could cost up to $15 million. Central Michigan University is not funding the project, but has made a partial contribution to construction on East Campus Drive. 

The university is also leasing the land to Lodgco on a 30 year contract. Over that span of time, the company will pay CMU $5.25 million.

“We are starting to put the roof on. That should be done sometime in October and we are bricking the sides,” said Mike Postle, vice president of Construction and Project Management at Lodgco Hospitality.

Students will be able to use the facilities for training, Postle said, and the hotel will assist during game days with crowd control.

“We wanted to team up with Central to create a hotel that would both work for our company, Lodgco, but also for CMU, allowing students to have a say in how we’re going to run things and see operations first hand,” Postle said. 

The 148-room hotel will have seven conference rooms that can be used by CMU to host meetings and other events. The university will have input in how the conference rooms are built. 

Hospitality students will be trained in the facility and professors will schedule classes at the hotel so students can learn skills first hand.

“I think something magic is going to happen,” said Gary Gagnon, assistant professor of hospitality services administration. “We are very excited about this for a whole host of reasons. We want the students to take ownership of the hotel. Part of having it on campus is that we want this to be the home for CMU hospitality students. ”

Mike Smith, President and CEO of Lodgco Hospitality, is an alumnus of CMU. Smith's connection to the project is a statement, Gagnon said, about the quality of the hospitality program. 

“He graduated from our program a long time ago. It’s fantastic just to see one of our alums doing something so incredible. Now his company is going to be hiring and helping to train our students,” Gagnon said.

Laingsburg senior Dale Boettcher said he is excited to be able to work in the hotel as opposed to learning through a textbook or lecture.

“I think the best way to learn something is to do it yourself and to actually experience it,” Boettcher said. “You can only learn so much from a textbook. You have to actually get into the field to know what you’ll be working with.” 

As part of his duties as president of the Hospitality and Tourism Society, Boettcher has difficulty finding rooms on campus available to host group meetings. 

“The hotel is going to let us use their board room overlooking the football field for our weekly meetings,” he said.

Wixom senior Kayla Anderson is also excited about a new opportunity. 

“I think it's a really great idea because it will be good to have a hotel that's connected with Central," said Anderson, a hospitality major. "It would be really cool to actually have classes at a hotel. I feel like you would get more experience that way.” 

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