The Hotel Roanoke Conference Center Commission voted unanimously after a closed meeting on Wednesday to approve an agreement to sell the Conference Center of Roanoke for $14 million to a Virginia Tech Foundation subsidiary, Hotel Roanoke LLC.
Virginia Tech confirmed in October that it plans to sell the hotel, which it already owns. The adjoining conference center is owned by the commission, which includes three city of Roanoke representatives and three from Virginia Tech. It’s a relationship that had been in place since the hotel, which had fallen into disrepair, was renovated and reopened with the conference center in 1995 after a substantial community effort to save it.
Now, with the agreement to sell the conference center to the foundation, the property can be marketed with a single owner.
“The conference center and the hotel work together as one,” said commission Chairman Court Rosen in an interview Wednesday afternoon. “It makes sense.”
Roanoke Mayor Joe Cobb said that part of the reason the commission agreed to the sale was to ensure that the city does not end up owing money or finding itself in a financial predicament if the hotel was sold separately.
With the potential sale being discussed, a $14 million conference center courtyard expansion announced in the spring of 2025 was put on hold.
The city secured $12.7 million in bond funding for the courtyard project. It is on the hook to pay that debt.
The conference center generated $780,289 of net operating income in 2024-25 from more than $6 million in revenue, minus expenses, according to a commission financial statement.
The property, together, is assessed for tax purposes at about $62.5 million, according to city online real estate records, with the hotel at $41.7 million and the conference center at $20.6 million. Another small third parcel of land is assessed at $221,900.
Cobb said Wednesday that the property — the hotel and the conference center — is being marketed now, and that there has been a lot of interest in the property. He said it’s important to note that though the relationship in terms of the hotel’s ownership will change, there is an “exciting future” for the city’s partnership with Virginia Tech in other assets. That includes growth around the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine.
As part of the potential sale, there have been discussions that some of that money could be used for more investment in that innovation hub.
Newmark, a Washington, D.C.-based real estate firm, was hired earlier this year to seek buyers for the hotel and conference center, even with the separate ownership in place.
While owned by the Tech Foundation, the 330-room hotel is operated by the private Hilton Curio Collection.
The hotel’s historic status drove the community to find a way to save it 30 years ago.
It is part of the city’s railroad heritage, with Norfolk and Western Railway opening the hotel in 1882. It fell on hard times in the 1980s and it closed in November 1989. That prompted the push to revive it.
The hotel and conference center reopened April 3, 1995, after a $41 million renovation.
