Many will benefit from Kirkwood hotel

With the opening of the Hotel at Kirkwood Center on the Kirkwood Community College campus, guests to the Cedar Rapids area have one more option when choosing where to lay their heads for the night.

The hotel will provide a unique, hands-on learning opportunity for hundreds of students in the school's hospitality and culinary arts programs, building on the school's already strong reputation in those fields.

The benefits will extend far beyond the Kirkwood community, as well, to local privately owned operations and visitors to Eastern Iowa.

Some critics have wondered whether the teaching hotel is unfair competition - especially as the travel industry continues to recover from the recent economic recession - but we're not worried.

Far from detracting, the Hotel at Kirkwood Center will help to build the area's reputation as an attractive and accessible place for conferences, meetings and events. That's something that will help bring more business to the hospitality industry throughout The Corridor.

And who better to work in those businesses than the well-trained graduates of Kirkwood's hospitality and culinary arts programs - already practiced in their fields of expertise, and ready to put their skills to work at a variety of Eastern Iowa establishments?

The $31 million, 107,000-square-foot Hotel at Kirkwood Center, located at 7725 Kirkwood Blvd. SW, is the largest teaching facility of its kind at a community college.

It is open to the public, and guests will pay hotel/motel tax just as they would in a private hotel.

The hotel was designed as an energy efficient, full-service luxury hotel. Its construction was funded through revenue bonds that will be paid as the hotel earns profits.

The hotel offers 71 guest rooms, including a variety of suites, a ballroom and meeting space, a full-service restaurant, concierge service and other amenities.

It will be a convenient facility for the Kirkwood community, providing access and shuttle service to the Kirkwood Recreation Center. But more important, it will help the school provide practical, real-world experience for students in the community college's hospitality and culinary arts programs.

The Hotel at Kirkwood Center employs dozens of professional staff members, many of them adjunct instructors, to help teach and guide students through real-world situations.

School staff have revised and developed course curriculum to take full advantage of the new resource. That's sure to even further enhance these programs' attractiveness to potential students - even as the hotel itself helps make the area more attractive to potential visitors.

Visitors who will be in the capable hands of local, well-trained hospitality and culinary arts professionals.