ROOMS TO GROW

There’s about to be more room at the inn.

The Hilton University of Houston has secured a $30.4 million revenue bond to expand and renovate the on-campus facility that serves as the training laboratory for students in the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management. The college will pay off this bond using revenue generated from hotel operations.

Preliminary design plans include the addition of a five-story tower that will house 70 new guest rooms to be built in front of the college and north guest tower, increasing the hotel’s total number of rooms to 150. Six suites on the second floor of the south wing will be removed to create much-needed executive meeting space. The hotel’s existing 80 guest rooms in its north wing will be renovated, along with its lobby and public spaces. The adjacent courtyard between the north, south and west wings will also receive a facelift.

“This expansion is our future. Having only 86 rooms has made us an anomaly in the marketplace, but we are, in fact, a full-service Hilton franchisee,” said Dennis Reynolds, dean of Hilton College. “Our new 150-room hotel will provide for a more realistic learning experience for our students.”

Hilton College is the only hospitality program in the world where students work and take classes in an internationally branded, full-service hotel – 70 percent of hotel team members are students.

Construction is slated to begin in June 2020. Projected completion of the new hotel tower and renovations is late 2022 through early 2023.