The Hotel Roanoke Conference Center Commission voted to finalize the sale of the facility Wednesday to a Virginia Tech Foundation subsidiary, in an effort to make the property more marketable under one owner.
The foundation already owned the adjoining Hotel Roanoke.
All $14 million of the conference center sale will go to the city of Roanoke, but there is another $4 million to $5 million in other assets and obligations that still need to be worked out, commission Chairman Court Rosen said after Wednesday’s meeting. The commission is made up of city and Virginia Tech representatives, and that partnership was created from the conference center’s start in the early 1990s.
Rosen said Wednesday it was apparent that the city, which paid for the conference center’s construction more than three decades ago, has put more than $14 million into the facility over the years.
The conference center sale has been discussed behind closed doors for months but was first announced publicly in late August. The university foundation announced its plans to sell the hotel last October. Rosen, during Wednesday’s meeting, said the foundation plans to sell the property to “focus more on their core research institute” and “core academic purposes.”
In an August statement to Cardinal News, the university stated that the property is “best positioned” to continue out its current purpose, as a historic luxury hotel and conference center.
The commission’s city representatives are Cobb, Rosen and City Manager Valmarie Turner. The three Virginia Tech representatives are Amy Sebring, the university’s executive vice president and chief operating officer; Simon Allen, the university’s vice president for finance and chief financial officer; and Susan Short, its senior associate vice president for outreach and international affairs.
The commission will ultimately dissolve once there is no longer a need for it, its attorney, Paul Beers, said during the meeting.
He said in order to dissolve the commission, members will have to petition the courts for permission to dissolve. There is a six-month waiting period from there, Beers said.
Cobb said this sale is historic, just like the creation of the partnership 30 years ago. He said even with the eventual dissolution of the commission, he’d like to see a “continued partnership” between Tech and the city related to future investments.
Sebring said during the meeting that the relationship between the city and the university remains “strong.”
“This is a big step today, adding that there are lots of future steps “along the way in terms of our partnership.”
She said Tech will continue thinking in terms of “how we can best utilize resources in the area to continue to grow our programs and activities in a way that benefits the entire region.”
