Metro State College junior
James Elzi is one of hundreds of students in the school's hospitality, tourism and events management program who travel dozens of miles every week for an internship.
Elzi, who lives in downtown Denver, is the front-desk supervisor at Embassy Suites Hotel, 7525 E. Hampden Ave., in south Denver. It's a 10-mile drive each way and takes a toll on his budget, especially for a college student,
he said.
That likely will change in the near future for hospitality majors like Elzi. Officials with a special task force at Metro State are moving forward with plans to build a hotel and learning center directly on campus that would be run with the help of students.
"It would be great," Elzi said. "I could go to school and walk across the street and go to work."
Plans for the $34 million hotel and learning center, which would be located on a parcel of land at Speer Boulevard and Auraria Parkway, appear to be on track, according to
Chad Gruhl, chair of the Metro State Hotel Learning Center Task Force. A bid for a developer for the hotel is expected to go out in October, he said.
The initial designs for the $26.7 million hotel call for a 190-room complex with approximately 21,000 square-feet of meeting space, Gruhl said. The hotel would likely be funded through tax-exempt bonds, he said.
The $7.5 million learning center, which would feature classrooms, labs and other resources for students, would be located inside the hotel and would be funded through internal fundraising efforts, he said.
The actual day-to-day operations of the hotel would be run by an outside management company, but hospitality majors would be able to work with the staff at the hotel to gain the 1,200 hours of on-the-job training necessary to graduate. The addition of the hotel would help put Metro State "on the map" for students seeking degrees in the hospitality industry, Gruhl said.
"It would take this department to a completely new level," he said. "It would make us one of the top 10 hotel management programs in the country."
That's almost a certainty. Currently, only about 10 campuses feature a similar model, though others aren't far behind. Both the University of Washington and University of Las Vegas Nevada are working on building their own hotels on campus, Gruhl said.
The hotel and learning center would be ideal for Denver, a city that has invested heavily in tourism projects such as the expansion of the Colorado convention center, Gruhl said. It also could help accommodate and facilitate growth for the school's hospitality program, which has seen a nearly 240 percent spike in enrollment over the last 10 years.
"I think we've realized over time that tourism is the number one industry in the state and that we can bring in even more money in the future," Gruhl said, noting the long-term impact the city will gain with the exposure of the Democratic National Convention.
The hotel, however, could have an impact on an already crowded parking situation at the campus, which houses three colleges. The building, expected to break ground in 2009, would be built on a portion of an existing parking lot -- parking lot R.
"The issue of parking is being discussed right now," Gruhl said.
Possible alternatives include a parking garage for students in the hotel, he said. Parking issues and other considerations will be taken into account when the Auraria Board of Education votes in September whether to approve preliminary plans for the site.
If approved, the hotel could open as early as 2011, Gruhl said.