Hopes for new UNLV College of Hotel Administration building rekindled

UNLV officials hope to move forward with a long-delayed project — building a new home for the William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration.

University officials said Monday they are asking lawmakers to reallocate more than $2 million earmarked for planning to the design of the building.

The project has been a victim of budget cuts during hard economic times. The college shares a building with the Lee Business School, said Donald Snyder, dean of the College of Hotel Administration.

“There’s been talk about a new building for more than 12 years,” he said.

The project will be heard today by several legislative committees, which either will move it forward or delay it again, officials said.

In 2009, the university received
$3.2 million that it had to match with private funds to do initial planning for the building, said Gerry Bomotti, senior vice president for finance and business at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Officials only used about $400,000.

The location of the project has changed, and legislative action is required to reallocate the remaining planning funds to the new site, Snyder said. The original site was in the far northwest corner of campus near the Fulton Building.

Instead, the new building will be located in the center of campus, near the college’s current location, Snyder said. Officials are scrapping plans to build a 200-room hotel as part of the project.

If the reallocation of funds is approved by the Legislature, officials would be able to move forward with the design, Bomotti said. That would allow officials to be ready to approach lawmakers again during the 2015 or 2017 legislative sessions and ask for construction funds.

The building cost is estimated at
$50 million, Bomotti said. The university is committed to raising $20 million, and the rest would come from the state.

Thus far, the university has raised about $2.5 million, he said.

“It is still our top priority,” Bomotti said of capital projects on campus. “There’s a great need for the space, but also the hotel college is one of our highest ranked programs internationally, and it needs a new and fresh home.”

The college has more than 3,000 students at the main campus, Snyder said.

The reallocation of funds would allow Snyder to go out to the industry to raise the $20 million. He is hoping to get 10 to 12 large donors representing a broad range of the hospitality industry.

A few years back, there was a donor willing to match $25 million of the construction costs, but the state wasn’t able to provide the match, Bomotti said.

“The project was suspended” at that point, Snyder said.