A downtown State College plasma donation center will soon close amid plans for its building to be torn down for construction of a condominium hotel.
BioLife Plasma Services‘ last day for donations at 321 W. College Ave. will be May 31, a company spokesperson told StateCollege.com
“The current owner chose not to renew BioLife’s lease and instead is moving forward with selling the property,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “Unfortunately, the last day for plasma donors to donate plasma is May 31, 2024. The center will close on June 1, 2024.”
While BioLife is evaluating new centers across the U.S. and opening a new location in Cumberland County, it currently has no plans to reopen the State College office in a new location, according to the spokesperson.
The company’s only other locations in Pennsylvania are in Pittsburgh.
Local residents looking to give plasma for cash still have another option in the State College area at CSL Plasma, 265 Northland Center.
Haugh Realty Incorporated, owner of the building at the corner of South Atherton Street and West Beaver Avenue that has been the longtime home of BioLife, is planning to sell the property to a Western Pennsylvania-based developer who intends to construct new mixed-use building with a condominium hotel and ground-floor retail/restaurant space.
A preliminary land development plan for the building was submitted to the borough early this year and detailed at meetings in February.
The 95-foot-tall building with 4,750 square feet of commercial space and a 2,520-square foot lobby on the ground floor and a 64-unit luxury condo hotel on the upper eight floors, James Venture and Jamison Morse, of Sewickley-based VS Development Consultants, told the State College Design Review Board.
Each unit would be sold to individual investors who would then be part of a condo association that hires a single hotel operator. The units become part of the hotel rental inventory when not in use by the owners.
Investors can use their units whenever they want, Venture said, but under the association covenants they will not be permitted to use them as a permanent residence and can only rent them through the established program operated by the hotel management company.
The hotel operator will be responsible for 24-hour on-site management, general operations, marketing and branding, reservations, staffing for the lobby and front desk, concierge services and housekeeping. Hotel revenues will be shared by the unit owners and management company.
Each condo unit owner will be required to pay property taxes.
Access to the retail space will be primarily along Atherton Street. Filling the space with businesses that complement the hotel is a priority, Venture said, adding that the project is unlike some other high-rise buildings constructed in State College that assume vacant retail space in their financial models.
The developers will need to submit and receive approval for a final land development plan before the project can move forward.
According to a timeline presented in February, they hope to begin construction in January 2025 and open the hotel by the fall of 2026.
