The University of Central Florida board of trustees will vote this week on a boutique hotel on the campus.
This is the last round of approvals for the 135-room hotel. It will sit on 6.5 cres of university-owned land near University Boulevard and Alafaya Trail.
The hotel will have meeting space for up to 700 people, and a full-service restaurant is planned as well. UCF won’t pay to build or operate the hotel, and will instead lease the land to a private company to do that.
The school will get a guaranteed annual payment and a cut of the money spent on rooms. That money will be used for student scholarships.
Orlando economist Hank Fishkind said it’s a good idea for UCF to get a hotel.
“Most large universities have a boutique hotel on their property or right next to them, and that’s a great need at UCF," Fishkind said. "The market will meet that need almost immediately as we’ve seen, with different companies bidding to provide that hotel.”
This plot of land was previously considered as a site for an organic grocery store, but UCF eventually rejected those plans.
