Marriott Plans to Build Hotel on Campus of Cal State Fullerton

Plans were unveiled Thursday for construction of the first commercial hotel on a public university campus in California, a 200-room Marriott at California State University, Fullerton.

A portion of hotel revenue would help finance a new football and baseball complex.

The Marriott Corp. of Bethesda, Md., proposes to build a $10-million to $12-million hotel on part of the campus parking lot, Terry Galvin, the Fullerton city redevelopment manager, said. A football stadium and connecting baseball pavilion would be built on the campus’ football practice field, said Sal Rinella, Cal State Fullerton vice president for administration.

The university plays its home football games at Eddie West Field in Santa Ana. That city plans to raze the Eddie West Field.

“This would be the only hotel on campus in the California State University system,” Judy Mandel, Cal State Fullerton public information director, said.

While the hotel project at Cal State Fullerton is the first of its kind, California State University officials say they are considering putting private businesses on other campuses, including a hotel and convention center complex at California State University, Northridge, and a public TV station at the Sacramento campus.

The proposed hotel and convention center complex would be located at the northern edges of the Northridge campus. The university would get office space and student housing in exchange, according to university officials.

Similarly, the university would get office space in the proposed TV facility in Sacramento, according to William Vandament, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs for the 19-campus system.

“As far as I know these are the only projects under consideration right now,” he said.

A University of California spokesman said the only similar venture considered by that system was an industrial park development at the Santa Cruz campus. But the idea was shelved, he said. No UC campus has a commercial hotel on its grounds, he said.

Representatives of the university, Marriott and the city of Fullerton met Dec. 17 to work out the proposal, Rinella said. Under the plan, the university would lease the hotel land to the city redevelopment agency, which would sublease it to Marriott Corp., Galvin said. Marriott would return a portion of the hotel’s income to the university for the sports complex. Additional funds for the complex would come from private donations.

This is the university’s second attempt to build a hotel on campus. In June, RJS Development Inc. of Houston pulled out of a proposed hotel project because, a company official said, “the hotel market in Orange County is overbuilt.”

Galvin said Thursday that five other hotel developers quickly contacted the university and the city when the RJS firm dropped the project.

“We knew there was a special market there (on campus),” Galvin said. The closest hotel to the 23,500-student campus, he said, is in Orange. Fullerton and Orange are seven miles apart.

The latest hotel project must still be approved by Ann Reynolds, the California State University chancellor, the university trustees and the city redevelopment agency.

Both Rinella and Galvin said they see no roadblocks.

“City officials tell us that the redevelopment agency will approve this, and we feel the chancellor’s office will be receptive,” Rinella said.

Construction of the hotel, two towers of six or seven stories each, could begin in 1987, and the hotel could open in 1988, Galvin said. It would be located at the Orange Freeway and Nutwood Avenue.

The sports complex would be built within a few years after the hotel opened, Rinella said.

Galvin said he knew of no current opposition to the hotel plan.

In February, 1983, a group of students and a homeowner filed suit to block the RJS project, arguing it never should have been approved without an environmental impact report assessing noise, traffic and parking problems that might be generated.

The following April, however, the state Court of Appeal ruled that the group, known as the Coalition for Student Action, had filed suit improperly because it had not clearly specified its objections during administrative hearings. The state Supreme Court left the lower court ruling intact by declining to review it.

Times education writer David Savage contributed to this article.