The Hotel Roanoke Conference Center Commission took a step Wednesday toward selling the facility.
The commission unanimously voted to sell the conference center portion of the facility to the Virginia Tech Foundation for $14 million. The deal is set to close by early October.
The move paves the way for Virginia Tech – which already owns the hotel – to sell the entire facility to a third party. The hotel currently is operated by Curio Collection by Hilton.
"We've weighed all of the possibilities here, and it became clear that Virginia Tech wanted to sell the hotel, bottom line," says Roanoke Mayor Joe Cobb, who sits on the commission. "So, how do we best move forward to support that?"
Cobb says the commission arrived at the $14 million figure based on the property's assessed value, and "the bulk of the money" will eventually come back to the city of Roanoke.
The city's partnership with the Virginia Tech Foundation on the hotel began in the 90s, when the two entities came together to reopen the historic hotel, which dates back to the 1880s, and to build the conference center. The hotel itself is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
"Though the partnership that was centered around the hotel is coming to a close, a changing of that partnership is emerging and the potential for this hotel to be able to expand and grow exponentially is pretty exciting," Cobb says. "And from what I understand, there's a lot of interest in the property."
Cobb says Virginia Tech and Roanoke will continue to work together on the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, RoVa Labs and other projects.
