After years of delays, construction activity has resumed on a long-planned hotel in College Township.
StarGrande LLC broke ground for the Holiday Inn University Park in June 2019 at 1414 Dreibelbis Street, on a parcel between Sam’s Club and the Stocker auto dealerships. Work paused around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and since then there had been little progress.
But after recent activity was observed at the site, College Township Zoning Officer Mark Gabrovsek confirmed that the same owner was resuming construction.
The township issued new permits in March, since the previous ones had expired. Construction was expected to begin in the spring but was “delayed by logistic issues,” Gabrovsek wrote in an email.
Centre Region Code Administration (CRCA) also issued new permits and subsequently filed enforcement notices for two issues related to debris on the site and the Tyvek wrapping on the structure, CRCA Director Walt Schneider said. Those were intended to encourage the developer to move forward with work and have been corrected, according to Schneider.
Both Gabrovsek and Schneider noted activity at the site was picking up.
“Construction has commenced again and the site is starting to show signs of progress again,” Gabrovsek wrote.
It was not immediately clear what the anticipated completion date is.
According to plans announced in 2019, the four-story, 63,000-square-foot hotel is expected to have 101 guest rooms, a fitness center, indoor swimming pool, a bar and lounge area, a restaurant, banquet and meeting spaces. It was projected to employ 30 part-time and 10 full-time staff members.
Plans for a hotel on the site date back more than a decade. In 2012, College Township Council approved plans by a different developer for a 109-room Homewood Suites. The plan expired and the hotel was never developed.
Council initially approved another plan in 2017, but new plans were submitted and approved in 2018.
As part of the approval, StarGrande will contribute $13,952 for a future traffic signal at the intersection of Shiloh Road and Trout Road.
That signal will be important to another potential hotel development nearby. A sketch plan recently presented to College Township Council and Planning Commission proposes subdividing three parcels totaling 19 acres northwest of the intersection of Shiloh and Trout roads into seven commercial lots ranging from 1 acre to 5.4 acres. One of the lots, a 3-acre tract, will be developed for a 115-room hotel, Mark Toretti of PennTerra engineering said at the Sept. 19 planning commission meeting.
A developer and brand for that hotel have not been publicly identified.
The development would create a four-way intersection at Trout and Shiloh roads, likely requiring a traffic signal, Toretti and property owner Ed Maxwell said. They are waiting on PennDOT to provide the scope for a traffic study, which would need to be included with a land development plan.
