George Mason University presents hotel plans
By Frank Mustac
George Mason University outlined its plans to open a 150-room hotel with a 20,000-square-foot conference center on the southwest side of its Fairfax campus along Chain Bridge Road by spring 2010 for the Fairfax City Council March 25 at City Hall.
Tom Calhoun, vice president for facilities at Mason, had previously made the same presentation to other local governments and community groups in the area.
Mason, Calhoun said, is taking a cue from about 60 other universities and colleges around the nation that also have hotel and conference centers on their campuses.
“It’s done a lot throughout the country,” said Calhoun, noting that the facility would give the university the capability to stage scholarly conferences, a capability it does not have currently.
The hotel will contain a restaurant and lounge, plus have 200 parking spaces, 80 of which would be underground.
Along with the hotel and conference center, Mason is constructing a new campus entrance at Chain Bridge Road (Route 123) and a new road, to be completed in August 2009, leading from that entrance to the hotel and farther into campus.
“This will become a signature entry to the university,” Calhoun said. “We see it lessening traffic on Braddock Road.”
Calhoun also presented to the city council the university’s plan to construct about 155 housing units in the northeast part of campus near the Green Acres Community Center on Sideburn Road in Fairfax City.
The townhouse-style apartments would mainly be rented to younger faculty and staff with families. Tenants would receive leases in duration of no more than three years with the intent that, within that time, they would find housing off campus, and new faculty and staff could move into the same on-campus residential units.
“The No. 1 reason for doing this project is to attract faculty,” Calhoun said.
By providing below-market rental housing for its employees, Mason is expected to enhance its recruitment efforts and retention numbers of faculty who often find housing costs in the Washington, D.C., area much higher than in other regions of the country.
Councilwoman Joan Cross asked Calhoun which public schools the children of Mason employees living in the faculty housing units would likely attend.
Calhoun said they would probably enroll in schools within the Woodson pyramid, meaning elementary and middle schools in the area that feed students into Woodson High School on Main Street in Fairfax, just outside the Fairfax City limits.