A new Marriott Residence Inn has been proposed for College Park with 8,000 square feet of retail space, continuing a recent boom in business-class travel options along the Route 1 corridor.
The 165-room hotel would be located at the northwest corner of Campus and Corporal Scott drives, currently a surface parking lot kitty-cornered from the College Park Metro station.
If approved, the new Marriott Residence Inn would join the Hotel at the University of Maryland, the Cambria Hotel and a planned Hyatt House hotel at Riverdale Park Station.
As a college town, College Park has long had hotels for visitors at homecoming or graduation, though some of the older ones have since been torn down to make way for Lidl and a new development.
But the new hotels are much more upscale.
Residence Inn and Hyatt House are extended-stay hotels with larger rooms aimed at upscale business travelers. The Hotel at UMD is intended as a landmark for the university’s growing tech corridor, while Cambria is a slightly cheaper alternative nearby.
A recent report from commercial real estate company NAI Michael found that the local hotel market “continues to outperform most similar jurisdictions with similar demographics across the United States” and is expected to grow over the next three years.
At one time, the Marriott near Adelphi and Campus drives on the western end of campus would have been enough for the university to host a visiting guest. But the new hotels show a growing interest in the area among business travelers, especially for the stretch from the Discovery District to the Iribe Center.
That’s even more of a positive sign, considering that hotel construction is slowing nationally amid a decline in business travel.
1 Response to Route 1’s Upscale Hotel Boom Continues