New hotel to come to Lafayette
By Heather Mangold
City
Editor
The Lafayette Urban Enterprise Association is working
with local hotel owners to bring a new branch of Holiday Inn to downtown
Lafayette.
A press conference was held Tuesday at the Swezey
Commerce Center in Lafayette to announce the association's involvement
in the new downtown hotel.
The hotel will be located on the Pittman block
of Lafayette, touching South Alabama Street, 5th Street and 6th Street.
The hotel is a branch of Holiday Inn and will be
franchised by University Inn and Conference Center Owners, Ron Reader
and Gregg Murphy.
Dennis Carson, executive director of the Lafayette
Urban Enterprise Association, said that the association offers two vehicles
of assistance for the new hotel.
The association would be helping the new hotel
with employee recruitment as well as overseeing the downtown enterprise.
The Lafayette Urban Enterprise Zone, which will
host the hotel, consists of the area that the association wants to improve.
It will do so by overseeing various projects and helping to recruit
employees.
Murphy said that his motives for building in the
zone are due to investment cost credits and employee recruitment help
that the association will be providing.
The Urban Enterprise Zone's western boundary is
the Wabash River. Its eastern boundary is the new Norfolk Railroad tracks
that were developed in Lafayette's recent railroad relocation program.
Its northern boundary extends to the Siemens plant on S.R. 52 and its
southern boundary extends to the Cargill plant on Wabash Avenue.
The hotel will have a full restaurant, lounge,
pool and 5,000 square feet of conference space.
"It's nice because it's so close to Purdue," said
Murphy.
Construction of the hotel is expected to begin
in late spring and completion of the project is expected in Aug. 2002,
said Murphy.
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