11/4/02

AUBURN TO RENOVATE EXTERIOR OF HOTEL-CONFERENCE CENTER

AUBURN -- Auburn University will undertake a $2.4 million exterior renovation of the AU Hotel and Dixon Conference Center starting in late November.

Stone Building Co., Inc., of Birmingham was the successful bidder for the project, which will involve removal of exterior brick, application of asphalt waterproofing materials, window repairs, upgrading of flashings and replacement of the brick.

The work will provide improved insulation against dampness that is common in many commercial structures built during the 1980s. As with other commercial buildings, the facility uses mechanical systems to control humidity levels in guest areas. However, officials say the university is taking a longer view of the facility, regarding it instead as an institutional structure.

"This work will bring the hotel and conference center up to current Auburn University standards and will add decades to the life of a building that is important to the community and state as well as to the university," said Christine Curtis, AU's associate provost for facilities.

Curtis said the exterior renovation will take about one year and will be conducted in phases to minimize disruptions for guests. At each phase, rooms in that area will remain vacant while work is underway. Work that continues into the busy fall season of 2003 will be in areas that are out of public view and away from most guest quarters.

The six-story, 248-room hotel and adjacent 36,850-square-foot conference center was built for $20 million in 1987-88 by the Montgomery-based Algernon Blair Group, which operated the hotel as a private enterprise. The facility opened in August 1988.

Under the original contract, the developer was to transfer ownership to the university after 30 years. However, ownership changed to other private owners in the early 1990s when the developer experienced financial problems with its nationwide holdings.

For the building's first decade, the private owners operated the hotel and leased the conference center to the university. The university purchased the facility in 1999 for $5.5 million -- most of which was offset by savings on lease payments that would no longer be due for the conference center -- and assumed the remaining $11 million in longterm debt.

Similar-sized buildings planned for campus over the next decade are projected to cost more than $30 million.

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nov02: AU-ext