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Youngkin proposes eliminating tax on tips in Va. budget

Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Monday a budget proposal to exempt service tips from Virginia’s state income tax, an idea that’s gained bipartisan support federally.

In a statement, Youngkin said that Virginians who receive tips — hair stylists, restaurant workers, bellhops and other service industry professionals — would benefit from being able to claim deductions on their state tax returns to the tune of about $70 million annually.

President-elect Donald Trump proposed the idea of eliminating taxes on tips during the presidential campaign, and Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, endorsed the idea as well.

“We have delivered over $5 billion in tax relief to date, and we remain committed to lowering the cost of living for hardworking Virginians. It’s their money, not the government’s,” Youngkin said in a statement. “By removing tips from taxable income, it will directly increase the take-home pay of hundreds of thousands of Virginians and give them more buying power, which in turn will improve financial stability, stimulate local economies, and honor the value of their hard work.”

According to the governor’s statement, the state tax department and the Virginia Employment Commission estimate that more than 250,000 Virginians work in service and hospitality industries.

Shortly after the governor’s announcement, the Virginia Restaurant Lodging & Travel Association released a statement of support.

“Virginia’s tipped employees in the hospitality and restaurant industries do an amazing job every day to help our commonwealth welcome visitors and locals alike to our nation-leading restaurants, hotels, campgrounds and attractions,” VRLTA President Eric Terry said. “Helping these team members keep more of the tips that they earn in their pockets will be a welcome relief as consumer costs continue to put pressure on everyday families. We are committed to working with the Youngkin administration and the Virginia General Assembly to make sure that this proposal is as responsible and impactful for Virginia’s tipped employees as it can be.”

U.Va. hotel, conference center expected fall 2025

To fulfill a need for a new comprehensive conference space in Charlottesville, the University of Virginia is set to welcome the Virginia Guesthouse hotel and conference center in fall 2025.

The new facility will feature 214 guest rooms, including nine suites.

The approximately 224,000-square-foot Virginia Guesthouse will offer close to 29,000 square feet of conference and meeting space, 15,000 square feet dedicated to food and beverage services and around 12,000 square feet of public spaces, including an expansive lobby living room on the first floor and a rooftop gathering space. The ground floor will serve as an area for students to study and socialize and also will have a welcoming center.

“It’s not designed to just simply be there for the betterment of U.Va. It is designed to be for U.Va. and the surrounding region,” says J.J. Wagner Davis, U.Va. executive vice president and chief operating officer.

The UVA Foundation will operate the hotel, which U.Va. is financing and building. Foundation CEO Tim Rose says the project reflects the university’s response to a critical need identified by U.Va. President Jim Ryan’s hospitality task force.

“It was determined that there was a significant need for conference facilities that could serve the faculty, be within walking distance and offer large enough meeting rooms to host conferences right here at the university,” he says. “Additionally, that it could be done at a price point that made sense for the broader academic community.”

The project replaces the old Cavalier Inn on Emmet Street, though it’s in a different location.

Construction began in October 2022 and has faced challenges, including supply chain issues and rising construction costs, which pushed the budget from its initial estimate of $130 million to $168 million. Nevertheless, the project has progressed, with the addition of the $3 million rooftop amenity.

The Virginia Guesthouse addresses the needs found by the university task force by providing an accessible and affordable option compared to other facilities such as Boar’s Head Resort, which, although also owned and operated by U.Va., is more expensive and not within walking distance of the main campus, and The Forum Hotel, which primarily serves Darden’s executive education program.

As part of the Ivy Corridor, a 14.5-acre parcel and entry point to U.Va., Virginia Guesthouse will be strategically located near other developments, including the newly opened School of Data Science and the Karsh Institute of Democracy, expected in 2026.  

Military Circle plans shift in new direction

The fate of Norfolk’s closed Military Circle Mall has yet to be determined, but city officials are considering how the property could leverage sports tourism and offer retail and housing options.

The city bought the 54-year-old, long-declining mall building and the surrounding 73 acres in 2020 for $11 million. As Norfolk seeks to repurpose the building and property, the city has commissioned a $200,000 study from Washington-based consulting firm Gensler to determine if a mixed-use family sports complex with retail, lodging and residential components would be the best fit, says Sean Washington, Norfolk’s economic development director.

“We want to bring in outside money and these families, when they travel for their competitions, they spend money in restaurants and hotels,” Washington says.

The proposed development’s mixed-use portion, including housing, would provide an economic anchor, he says: “With the current housing shortage, we want to help people to get affordable home ownership. This study will determine if this is the direction we want to go in.”

The study is essentially a reboot for the city’s Military Circle plans, following a prolonged competitive bidding process that saw proposals submitted from three groups of developers, including a team led by music and fashion icon Pharrell Williams, who proposed a development to be known as Wellness Loop that would have included a 15,000-seat arena, 1,100 housing units, office space and a hotel. Despite negotiating with Williams’ team, the city never officially approved that proposal, and in February, the city Economic Development Authority issued a new request for proposals for redeveloping Military Circle Mall.

With Sentara Health occupying the mall’s former JCPenney store, the new development will have a health and wellness emphasis, Norfolk Mayor Kenneth Alexander says, and the sports complex will not just be for tourism, but also for the community. “Everyone keeps telling me to put in pickleball courts,” Washington says.

Another question is what type of housing is needed, Alexander says, adding that the city needs to determine if its schools can handle additional children or if the housing should be for seniors.

The study also will address whether the mall and surrounding outparcels can be repurposed instead of being demolished, as was originally planned.

“The question is how to use the box stores and readapt them,” Washington says. “Nothing is off the table.”   

Va. unions oppose Alexandria arena, but governor sticks by it

The AFL-CIO’s Virginia member unions announced Tuesday that they oppose the proposed Alexandria arena for the Washington Capitols and Wizards teams and a surrounding entertainment district. The $2 billion deal has been promoted by Gov. Glenn Youngkin and some City of Alexandria officials, while receiving significant pushback from key Democratic state lawmakers and some Alexandria residents.

In a letter sent Tuesday to state senators who are considering a bill that would create a state authority to own and run the arena, the president of the Northern Virginia Labor Federation said the region’s AFL-CIO member unions “have decided to oppose the Potomac Yard Stadium Authority project” because the developers of the proposed project, JBG Smith Properties and financial adviser JPMorgan Chase, “declined to negotiate a LPA [labor peace agreement] or a PLA [project labor agreement]. We also do not have a signed PLA for the arena portion.”

A labor peace agreement, the letter from Northern Virginia AFL-CIO President Virginia Diamond states, “would ensure a fair process for hotel workers to freely decide whether they want to unionize. We also asked the developers to sign a project labor agreement … for construction workers that would support small minority- and women-owned businesses, promote local hiring from disadvantaged communities and provide career paths through apprenticeship training.

“We have consistently stated that given the huge public investment in the project, there must be a guarantee of good jobs for workers on the entire campus. We insisted that the wealth generated by the project must benefit all — not just those at the top.”

Diamond’s letter goes on to suggest that without the labor agreements, “there is likely to be wage theft, exploitation of immigrants and poverty wages among hospitality and construction workers.”

JBG Smith, the Bethesda, Maryland-based developer of the project, said in a statement Tuesday it was “disappointed and surprised” by the unions’ statement about the arena, which JBG Smith maintained would “create tens of thousands of good-paying jobs, most of which would be union jobs, and offer some of the strongest labor and worker protections of any project in Virginia’s history, especially during the construction phase.”

The company also said in its statement that it does not “own or operate hotels and will do nothing to stand in the way of any efforts by the eventual owner or operator of hotels in this project to enjoy productive conversations with organized labor. JBG Smith condemns wage fraud and theft practices of any kind, and we have a specific policy requiring the general contractor and subcontractors to thoroughly investigate and work with the relevant authorities and with JBG Smith on any allegations of wage fraud or theft.”

Diamond also wrote that Monumental Sports & Entertainment, the teams’ owners group, has union workers at its current arena in Washington, D.C., many of whom would move to the Alexandria campus if approved, “but we cannot leave our most vulnerable community members behind. Their work has dignity and they deserve to have their lives improved by this project. They deserve good wages, health care and retirement benefits, job safety and workplace rights so they can afford to live and work in our community.”

However, Youngkin said in a statement Tuesday evening that his administration and “the partners in this project have worked in good faith over the last few months to give union workers a substantial role in this project. Today, labor leadership backtracked on that progress and announced their opposition to a project that creates 30,000 jobs, including 12,000 construction-trade jobs.”

Virginia, Youngkin continued, “is a right-to-work state, and unreasonable demands from union leaders will not derail this project. I will continue to work with the General Assembly to complete this opportunity and bring $12 billion in economic contributions that will fund shared priorities in Virginia.”

Monumental and JBG Smith also released a statement together Tuesday following the unions’ announcement: “As we have said from the outset, Monumental Sports & Entertainment and JBG Smith are committed to ensuring the development of a new sports and entertainment district that creates good-paying jobs, including quality union jobs. During near daily negotiations over the course of several months, this development partnership gave labor nearly everything it asked for including strong wages, benefits and training commitments, as well as efforts to prevent wage theft and misclassification. Our discussions went farther to specifically promote local hiring and opportunity for small, women-, minority- and veteran-owned businesses.”

Alexandria officials also released a statement Tuesday in response to the unions’ letter, emphasizing the city’s history of working with unions: “The City of Alexandria believes that pursuing the entertainment district, and the economic development opportunities it creates, is critical to the immediate and long-term growth of our community. We also believe successful pursuit of this opportunity includes recognition of the strength of a positive labor relationship and ensures this opportunity creates good-paying jobs, including quality union jobs.”

The city’s statement continues to say that it has reached three collective bargaining agreements with unionized city employees, as well as “our history of support for good jobs, higher wages, better benefits and safer workplaces throughout our community.

“We will continue to work with our partners to reach an agreement that benefits workers and achieves the intended goals of this project — including significant city return on investment to support city resources and services; reducing the tax burden on our residents; redevelopment of a currently underperforming and aging strip shopping center; and a catalyst for robust future economic growth for our city and our residents, including maximizing our investment in the Potomac Yard Metro station.”

JBG Smith’s statement added that the company has worked with community stakeholders to bring $215 million-plus in transportation investments into the immediate neighborhood of the proposed project, and “has voluntarily committed to preserving the affordability of 500+ housing units immediately around the site and is working to bring small, local, and minority-owned businesses to the project.”

The Coalition to Stop the Arena at Potomac Yard, a group of Alexandria residents opposing the project, praised the unions’ letter, adding, “They said ‘no’ to an arena where good, union jobs are not protected. They said ‘no’ to a deal that does not protect immigrant workers from wage theft and exploitation.”

Business groups’ support

Meanwhile, Virginia chambers and other business groups have largely backed the project, including the Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce and the Virginia Economic Developers Association. “The benefits of a project of this size will be felt well beyond the region, and we believe the entire commonwealth will benefit from this influx of jobs, revenue, and economic opportunity in Virginia,” VEDA President Linda Green said in a statement last week.

On Tuesday, the Northern Virginia Black Chamber of Commerce also threw its support behind the project. “This sports and entertainment district is a game-changer for our Black-owned business community,” chamber Chair Samuel Wiggins said in a statement. “It opens up new avenues for growth, collaboration and innovation. We’re looking at a future where our local businesses can flourish alongside global names, contributing to and benefiting from the economic vitality this district will bring.”

Eric Terry, president of the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging, and Travel Association, wrote an op-ed column Tuesday in the Richmond Times-Dispatch saying that the arena and entertainment district would “turbocharge” tourism growth in the commonwealth.

Nonetheless, unions carry a lot of weight with Democratic lawmakers, some of whom have already voiced wariness or opposition to the arena authority bill that is needed for the project to move forward.

On Feb. 16, the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership released an economic and fiscal impact report conducted on the city’s behalf by HR&A Advisors, forecasting that the arena could generate up to $7.96 billion in annual economic output for the state and nearly 30,000 permanent jobs statewide if the arena is completed by 2028 on an accelerated construction schedule. However, local opponents argued there wasn’t enough transparency in the report, which included no revenue projections.

Meanwhile, according to a Washington Post report, the arena plan is stripped from one version of the state budget under consideration in the Virginia General Assembly. The state Senate would have to approve a House-originated bill to authorize creation of the state authority for the arena project, which would shoulder $1.35 billion of the project’s $2 billion cost with bonds. Sen. Louise Lucas, chair of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, stalled the Senate version of the state authority bill, citing concern over a possible risk to public funds.

Virginia’s largest conference hotels

Checking in

Neither Radford University nor the University of Virginia had to look far for collaborators on projects that have altered their campus footprints.

The universities called on their own foundations to push forward the construction of two new on-campus hotels — The Highlander Hotel Radford and The Forum Hotel at U.Va. — and an upcoming hotel and conference center in Charlottesville. Both opened in April.

The Highlander has 124 rooms, a rooftop restaurant and more than 6,000 square feet of meeting space, as well as halls adorned with artwork by Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso and other accomplished artists from the Radford University Foundation’s collection.

The Forum, a Kimpton property at U.Va.’s Darden School of Business, provides 20,000 square feet of room for conferences and meetings, 198 guest rooms, a steak house and a craft-beer bar. A third property — the Virginia Guesthouse and Conference Center — is scheduled to open at U.Va. in 2025 with 214 rooms and 25,000 square feet of meeting space, according to U.Va. Foundation spokesperson Katie Murphy. The 220,000-square-foot building will be along the Emmet/Ivy Corridor, near the forthcoming Karsh Institute of Democracy and the School of Data Science.

Leaders at both schools say the new hotels provide a welcoming entry point to their campuses.

“For some people, [The Forum] will absolutely be what they experience first,” said Ashley Williams, CEO of Darden Executive Education and Lifelong Learning. “It’s a reflection of U.Va. and a reflection of Darden, and we were very thoughtful about what this needs to provide in a way that’s consistent with the educational mission and the mission across our Grounds.”

Although U.Va.’s foundation owns and operates the Boar’s Head Resort, The Forum is a new type of venture since it’s on the university’s Grounds and is focused on accommodating visitors to Darden and its neighbor, the U.Va. School of Law. It’s also Kimpton’s first on-campus hotel and offers classroom space and housing for students pursuing MBAs.

The new hotel’s property also includes a 6-acre arboretum that ties back to the interests of university founder Thomas Jefferson, as does the hotel’s Jeffersonian architectural style.

As for Radford’s Highlander hotel, named for the university’s mascot, it offers visitors much-needed lodging for athletic events — even football games at Virginia Tech.

John Cox, CEO of the Radford University Foundation, which manages university-owned real estate, says the Highlander has already received an uptick in weekend bookings for Tech’s home games, and the Forum is only a half-mile walk to U.Va.’s John Paul Jones Arena, home of the Cavaliers’ basketball teams.

“Athletics will be a big driver of interest,” Cox says. “The hotel is generating a fair amount of excitement on campus and in the community.”

Elsewhere across the state, plenty of hotels are being built or revamped. Here are some of the highlights:

Central Virginia

In October, the Omni Charlottesville Hotel debuted its $15 million renovation of 199 guest rooms and six suites,  plus dining areas — including a new restaurant and bar, The Conservatory — and 14,000 square feet of meeting space, which includes three new flexible meeting rooms and a private dining venue.

Its opening is a few months off, but the historic Hotel Petersburg is set to reopen in April 2024 after a $14 million renovation. Vacant since a fire in the 1960s, the hotel will feature 68 guest rooms and a rooftop bar.

Hampton Roads

Moxy Virginia Beach Oceanfront, Marriott’s hotel brand geared toward millennials, opened in June and includes a small meeting and event space that can accommodate about 30 people, as well as the Belvedere South Coffee Shop and Diner, a revival of the classic Virginia Beach restaurant demolished in 2020.

In February, Embassy Suites Virginia Beach Oceanfront Resort opened as the third and final part of the $350 million Cavalier Resort Virginia Beach, owned by Gold Key | PHR. A Hilton property, the hotel has 157 suites, restaurants, pools, and a fitness center. In total, the Cavalier Resort has 547 guest rooms and more than 40,000 square feet of meeting and event spaces.

Northern Virginia

A renovation of the nearly 100-year-old George Mason Hotel in Alexandria’s Old Town neighborhood is scheduled to be completed in early 2024. Operated by Aparium Hotel Group, the newly dubbed Hotel Heron will include 134 rooms, a restaurant, a rooftop bar and a cafe.

In April, the Residence Inn by Marriott Manassas Battlefield Park completed a refresh of its 107 guest suites, meeting rooms and exterior. Near historic Manassas, the Warrenton Training Center and the Manassas Regional Airport, the hotel is owned by Apple Hospitality REIT in Richmond.

Shenandoah Valley

The Omni Homestead Resort in Bath County unveiled its $150 million expansion and renovation in October. The update includes a new 4,000-square-foot event pavilion and a revamp of the resort’s 72,000 square feet of meeting space. Theater 1923, Homestead’s century-old space for keynote speakers, has converted its seating from theater seats to sofas, lounge chairs and side tables, and added new audiovisual technology. Also, the Warm Springs Pools, which were closed in 2017, reopened in December 2022 after a $4.6 million restoration.

Roanoke Valley

Local furniture retailer Txtur transformed a 115-year-old historic firehouse in Roanoke into a boutique hotel, Fire Station One, which opened in January. In addition to serving as a showroom for Txtur’s furniture, the hotel provides a private meetings and events space, the Bunk Room, along with seven guest rooms. The red brick building sat vacant for 15 years before its refurbishment. 

New federal per diem rates provide bump for hotels

The federal government’s fiscal 2024 per diem reimbursement rates — released Aug. 16 by the General Services Administration — will largely benefit Virginia’s hotels, but not necessarily its restaurants.

The continental United States (CONUS) rates — dictating lodging allowances and meals and incidental expenses (M&IE) for federal employees while traveling — will be effective Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, 2024.

The standard CONUS lodging rate, which applies to all localities that GSA does not specify rates for, will increase from $98 to $107. GSA bases the lodging allowances on average daily rate data, less 5%. Fiscal 2024 rates are based on data from April 2022 through March 2023.

“Virginia is probably the most impacted state by this, just because of the amount of government and military traffic that we have … and so it’s a nice lift for Virginia overall,” said Eric Terry, president of the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging and Travel Association.

Northern Virginia sees heavy government employee travel traffic due to its proximity to Washington, D.C. The GSA provides a set rate for D.C., the cities of Alexandria, Falls Church and Fairfax and the counties of Arlington and Fairfax, as well as Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in Maryland.

For fiscal 2024, the Washington, D.C.-area lodging rate will vary by month, with reimbursement rates scheduled to hit a low of $176 in July and August 2024 and a high of $261 in October 2023 and September 2024. That’s a slight increase from fiscal 2023 rates, which ranged from $172 to $258, although rates for March through July remain steady, at $258.

The fact that rates stayed roughly the same is good news for area hotels, said Visit Fairfax President and CEO Barry H. Biggar. Northern Virginia hotel rates dropped for a period of time as business travel declined, a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. From January through July, Northern Virginia hotel revenues were 3.6% lower than the same period in 2019.

“There was a period of time where the rates were actually going down a bit, so to maintain [almost] the exact same per diem as we had last year, we’re happy to be in that position,” he said, adding that it will contribute to the rebuild of travel and tourism in the county.

The per diem rates seem comparable to current hotel room rates in the county, particularly in areas that see a lot of government travel, like Reston and Tysons, Biggar said.

While the standard room rate per diem will increase, GSA did not change meals and incidental expense rates. That rate remains at $59, and the highest tier will stay $79. Starting with rates for fiscal 2016, the GSA began reviewing M&IE rates every three years.

The lack of an increase in the M&IE rate is frustrating, Terry said, since restaurant prices have increased over the last 18 months.

Northern Virginia’s M&IE allowance remains $79, but Biggar said he hasn’t heard concerns from restaurants.

“No one really is complaining about anything at this point, understanding that it’s going to still take a little while to regain back all the markets,” Biggar said.

Hampton Roads is another area that sees heavy federal employee travel, a benefit of it being home to Naval Station Norfolk, the world’s largest Navy base. Although much of the area falls under the standard rate, Virginia Beach receives a nonstandard rate. For fiscal 2024, GSA set the lodging rate at $120 for most of the year, up from $117 in fiscal 2023, and $222 for June, July and August, the same allowance as FY23. For James City and York counties and the city of Williamsburg, lodging rates range from $107 to $137 depending on the month, up from $103 to $130. The M&IE total in that region will remain $64.

In nearby Norfolk, the standard rate of $107 is attractive for hotels outside of downtown, said Visit Norfolk President and CEO Kurt J. Krause. Although the average room rates downtown are closer to $150, at times of low demand, such as December through February, hotels in that area will likely offer the CONUS rate to help fill rooms when demand from business travel decreases.

“The good news is they’ve raised it, because the average rates in Hampton Roads, I know, but specifically in Norfolk, they’ve gone up appreciatively in the last couple of years, post-COVID,” Krause said. While it is not ideal that the federal government’s per diem changes trail that trend, the new allowance still provides an attractive rate, he said.

In other areas of the state, rates have largely stayed static or reflected the slight increases seen in the standard rate. In Richmond, the lodging rate will increase from $145 to $149, and Charlottesville will see a jump from $126 to $133. Lynchburg’s lodging rate bumps up from $105 to $109.

Roanoke’s rate remains the same, $122, while Blacksburg and Montgomery County’s rates will range from $111 to $134, depending on the month, up from $105 to $123.

For hotels that honor the per diem rates, “this is going to be a nice increase for them,” Terry said. “This should be welcome news for most of our hotels.”

Norfolk airport hotel is ‘desperately needed’

An influx of 200-seat airplanes is bringing record numbers of passengers into Norfolk International Airport, leading officials to fast-track infrastructure upgrades and pursue construction of an airport hotel.

There is high demand for on-site lodging, especially among airline crews and travelers taking early morning flights, who often stay at downtown Norfolk hotels, says Norfolk Airport Authority President and CEO Mark Perryman. “Norfolk alone is down 1,000 hotel rooms. We’re contributing to filling that gap.”

Perryman envisions a 150-room hotel being built where the airport’s north short-term parking lot now sits, with the airport leasing the land to a hotel developer.

An airport hotel is “desperately needed — the sooner the better,” says Kurt Krause, president and CEO of VisitNorfolk, the nonprofit city convention and visitors bureau. Norfolk expects to reach 70% hotel occupancy this year. “When it hits that mark, the demand [will be] stronger than the inventory,” Krause adds, noting that the downtown hotel business has grown as more groups sponsor events.

More than 4 million passengers traveled through the airport last year, the busiest in its 84-year history. “We’re having to accommodate larger aircraft and process more passengers, which has taxed our operations,” Perryman says.

In April, a $30 million project will get underway to rehab the airport’s main runway, to be completed in late 2024.

And with renovations to two garages almost done and passenger loading bridge replacements targeted for completion this year, the airport also is accelerating terminal improvement projects in its 10-year capital plan. “Our terminal and concourses need to be modernized and expanded partly because of the larger aircraft,” Perryman says.

Beginning next summer, Concourse A will be redesigned, adding seven gates and a modern jet bridge. A central Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint will be established, and the ticketing and baggage screening areas will be consolidated.

Moving sidewalks will be reinstalled across pedestrian bridges this summer, largely funded by $5.4 million from the Federal Aviation Administration.

With the March arrival of Spirit Airlines, eight airlines now fly into and out of Norfolk. Outbound flights average 81% full capacity.

That bodes well for the region’s ability to attract and retain businesses, says Hampton Roads Alliance President and CEO Doug Smith.

“Passenger experience and connectivity is critically important,” Smith says. “It’s a very positive story to share with companies here and companies we are trying to attract.”

The Highlander nearly complete in Radford

The Highlander, a $40 million boutique hotel and conference center, is expected to open next to Radford University soon.

University officials and their partners in the project broke ground in April 2021 and expect it to be completed in January 2023.

The conference hotel will have 124 rooms, including four suites, and a 4,000-square-foot conference space that will allow the university to host large-scale events it couldn’t accommodate previously. There will also be a 2,750-square-foot indoor rooftop bar and restaurant and a 1,650-square-foot rooftop terrace.

“We just think it’s going to draw a lot more people to the community,” says John F. Cox Jr., Radford University Foundation’s CEO. “We are excited about the opportunities to use the hotel for conferences, events on campus and events throughout the New River Valley. That would include events such as homecoming, commencement and, of course, sporting events. We are optimistic that large companies in the area will use the hotel, and some have started to … [inquire] about booking rooms and/or events.”

The foundation’s board, Radford University Real Estate Management LLC, which manages the foundation’s real estate assets, and the university’s leadership began discussing the vision for a hotel in 2019.

“They’re real happy with the progression of the university as an institution — they just added a college of nursing — and their athletics program is great,” says Tony Peterman, executive vice president of hotel development advisory at real estate firm JLL, one of the partners in the project. “But they’ve always seen the hotel as a challenge because they have a lot of parents, visiting professors and alumni coming, and the hotel experience in Radford didn’t match what they were trying to do with the university.”

JLL, which specializes in structuring public-private partnerships, helped guide the project and lined up stakeholders including Virginia Beach-based S.B. Ballard Construction Co. as general contractor and BLUR Workshop as architect. The Highlander will be owned and operated by a special-purpose entity created for the project for the benefit of Radford University and its foundation. Preston Hollow Community Capital helped secure financing, and Provident Resources Group acted as the borrower and owner. Aimbridge Hospitality LLC will manage the property.

“Not only is it going to be the nicest hotel in Radford, but the nicest hotel in the region,” Peterman says. 

Virginia’s largest conference hotels