After delays, hotel serving Cal U., technology park opens for business
COAL CENTER – Marianne Linder is a hotelier with street cred. She has managed facilities in 10 states, for independents and various brands, including a decade with estimable Hilton Worldwide.
Linder knows the hotel industry and is confident her newest gig will be fruitful – now that it has finally landed.
“I would not be here if I did not think this would be a huge success,” said the general manager of the 85-room Hampton Inn & Suites, which opened July 20 in California Technology Park.
It was an encouraging first month.
“We’ve been getting quite a few guests,” Linder said last week at the front desk of the spiffy hotel that now adorns the technology park, in California Borough. “Occupancy is building at a substantial rate. Trip reports have been excellent. The team here is impressing guests.”
That could very well continue, for the Hampton Inn is finally satisfying a woefully underserved audience: the Cal crowd.
California University of Pennsylvania sits a mere mile to the north, along the banks of the Monongahela River. Yet, until mid-July, there were no hotel rooms in the immediate region for relatives or friends who were in for graduation, games or homecoming; no rooms for anyone dropping off or picking up students; no rooms for out-of-town high schoolers being wooed by the university; no rooms that could help draw concerts, conventions and other events to the $59 million convocation center on campus.
No rooms, also, for travelers doing business in the park.
No rooms, despite the school’s proximity to Pennsylvania Turnpike Route 43, Interstates 70 and 79 and venerable yet reliable Route 40. Washington, Uniontown and suburban Pittsburgh were options – less-convenient options.
To that end, Linder said, her hotel is catering to Cal to the extent that it is known as the Hampton Inn & Suites California University-Pittsburgh.
“We consider this the university hotel. We answer the phone that way,” said the GM, who previously worked at the Hampton Inn & Suites Pittsburgh-Meadow Lands.
There is certainly a Vulcans accent at the new facility, with the school colors – red and black – prominently displayed throughout. Photos of campus scenes adorn the walls. Linder said weekend travel packages and discounts for students and parents are available at the hotel website.
That July 20 opening is known, in the vernacular, as a “soft opening.” But there was nothing soft about the ride this three-story, 85-room hotel took. It lasted four arduous years.
Ground was broken Sept. 22, 2011, with a fall 2012 target for completion. Work, however, didn’t begin for two years – until September 2013 – because of budgetary measures and, to a lesser extent, soil issues.
Bill McGowen, executive director of the Redevelopment Authority of Washington County, which owns the technology park, told the Observer-Reporter in late February 2014 that if all went well, the Hampton Inn could open six months later. That didn’t happen.
Robert Griffin, economic development director of the Redevelopment Authority, said there were “a lot of factors” that prompted the final delay. “We had to coordinate with Hilton on a lot of things, and we had to work at selecting a hotel operator.”
The end result is a 50,000 square-foot facility with a pleasant new-hotel smell. Hampton Inn & Suites, which falls under the Hilton Worldwide banner, was built on five acres of the 138-acre park at an estimated cost of $12 million. Guests have the option of renting a room or a more-spacious suite.
Diane Carl, the guest services agent, provided a mini-tour of the facility. It is neatly appointed with amenities that include heated indoor pool, fitness center, meeting space for 45, business center, free WiFi and complimentary hot breakfast. A carpet at the lobby entrance says, invitingly, “we love having you here.” It is a Vulcans red rug with white letters on a field of black.
Griffin is impressed. “This is a tremendous product for California Technology Park and the university.”
Jeff Kotula, president of the Washington County Chamber of Commerce, likewise is enamored of the Hampton complex.
“(Its) location near Toll Route 43 and proximity to major employers such as California University of Pennsylvania, DreBo, Pennatronics, US Corrugated and Rose Plastics will make the property attractive to business and leisure travelers,” he said in an email.
The property was far from attractive when Kotula was growing up in nearby Daisytown. It “was a vacant field.”
That field still lacks the casual-dining restaurant the Redevelopment Authority has been trying to bring in all along. Those plans, however, have not been dashed.
“We’re working to attract a regional type of restaurant, a bar-and-grill type setup,” Griffin said.
Bear Construction of Southpointe built the inn, at 200 Technology Drive. California Hotel Associates Inc. of Warren, Ohio, is the owner, and Marshall Hotels the operator.
For more information, call 724-330-5820 or visit hamptoninn3.hilton.com/en/hotels/pennsylvania/hampton-inn-and-suites-california-university-pittsburgh-PITCAHX.