Kirkwood hotel crowning achievement for Belfield

The Hotel at Kirkwood Center will not open until July 2010, but Lee Belfield is a busy man with a mission.

On June 1, Belfield, 60, was named to develop, open and lead the new hotel as general manager. The $30 million, four-story hotel under construction on the south side of the Kirkwood Community College campus will offer 71 guest rooms, a restaurant with indoor and outdoor dining areas, a conference room and other amenities.

Over the next year, Belfield and a student, faculty and professional team will complete the teaching hotel, only the second such facility on a two-year college campus in the country.

Belfield, co-owner of Zins restaurant in downtown Cedar Rapids who has more than 30 years' experience in the lodging and restaurant industry, calls the Hotel at Kirkwood Center the “crowning achievement” of his professional life.

“I can't imagine what I could do that would better cap my career,” Belfield said. “It's an extraordinary privilege and the most complex project that I've ever been involved with.”

Belfield said he had opened hotels for large chains, such as Wyndham and Doubletree, and restaurants. But this project is unique, he said, because, “We're doing this without the support of a corporate office.”

As an adjunct professor in Kirkwood's culinary arts, lodging and restaurant management programs, Belfield has guided students through a host of final exams that tested their problem-solving skills, as well as their culinary and dining service talents.

Belfield said the Hotel at Kirkwood Center will be designed as much for student hands-on experience as for college use and public guests. The academic aspect will be tailored to the hotel operations, he said. Students will work alongside a full professional staff, including a restaurant manager, chef de cuisine, cooking and service staffs.

That will be different from what occurs now at the Class Act restaurant, he said, “where there is a chef instructor in the kitchen and an instructor in the front of the house.”

Belfield said students in the restaurant will work three weeks on breakfast, two weeks on lunch and two weeks on dinner before they go on to their next class.

“They also will take turns through each department of the hotel,” he said. “The intent is to create a new national model for preparing students to enter entry-level positions of supervision and responsibility in all three areas - hotel, kitchen or restaurant.”

Belfield's varied career prepared him for his latest challenge.

After teaching and coaching in Michigan, he managed food and beverage divisions of hotels from Seattle and Colorado Springs, Colo., to Texas and California. For a decade, Belfield was general manager of major hotels in the Houston and New York City metro areas.

During that same period, he became acquainted with Cedar Rapids as general manager of the Five Seasons Hotel. Belfield's career also led him to management roles at a major Florida resort complex, then with Radisson properties in Tampa, Fla., and Baltimore.

Belfield returned to Cedar Rapids when there was an opening for an instructor in the culinary arts program at Kirkwood. That experience got him thinking about a new way to teach students about careers in the hospitality industry.

“I remember leaning over to John Hinek, who was dean of business and information technology, during a meeting about the hospitality program,” Belfield recalled. “I whispered in John's ear, ‘Hey John. Why don't we just build our own hotel?' I thought that he would laugh at me, but he didn't.”

In 2005, the college launched an endowed faculty support program, providing money and opportunities to explore and research new ways of teaching and learning. Belfield applied for and was granted one of the first Endowed Faculty Chair awards.

During 2005 and 2006, he visited teaching hotels in Maine, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas. Belfield returned with a set of real-world numbers and began discussions with Kirkwood administrators, faculty members and area business and civic leaders.

“We learned an awful lot in our travels,” he said. “It's helped us create a truly unique facility.”