Scholar Lodge Group buys Marriott resorts in State School, PA

Scholar Lodge Group, which is presently negotiating with Penn State over its two campus resorts, just lately bought two extra native resorts — for practically $25 million — to additional broaden its footprint in Completely happy Valley.

The group purchased each Residence Inn by Marriott State School (1555 College Drive) for $15.6 million and Courtyard by Marriott State School (1730 College Drive) for $9.1 million, based on public paperwork filed final month. Apple Lodge LLC was the earlier proprietor and, per a Scholar Lodge official, approached the group a few sale.

Scholar Lodge Group now owns a resort close to Syracuse College, one other close to West Virginia College and 4 within the State School space, all inside 1.5 miles of the Penn State campus. It’s also in talks with the college to buy and ground-lease the 223-room Nittany Lion Inn and the 300-room Penn Stater Lodge & Convention Middle.

“We positively had a gameplan of including resorts this yr, and it is simply type of aligned up to now that the alternatives we have been capable of actually nail down have been within the State School market,” Ronald Balle, Scholar Lodge Group’s vp of gross sales and advertising and marketing, informed the CDT. “We’re very enthusiastic about State School as a marketplace for its continued progress and alternative.”

In accordance with Balle, Scholar Lodge Group is dedicated to preserving the just lately bought resorts as Marriott properties. Renovations to Courtyard’s rooms, public areas, the outside and the bistro/bar will happen later this yr, as soon as the house soccer slate is over, and renovations will begin at Residence Inn both later this yr or in 2023.

The corporate founder and president, Gary Brandeis, is a 1988 Penn State graduate. His Scholar Lodge Group made its State School debut in March 2017, when it opened the 165-room Hyatt Place State School, which serves because the anchor of Fraser Centre. In January 2021, the group opened its second space resort with the 72-room Scholar Lodge State School, within the downtown’s historic Glennland Constructing.

Primarily based on a public June assembly by Penn State’s board of trustees, Brandeis’ firm is the college’s “most well-liked associate” for the 2 campus resorts — the Penn Stater and Nittany Lion Inn — and is in talks to buy and ground-lease them. The college would proceed to personal the land the campus resorts sit on, and possession of the resorts would revert again to the college as soon as the long-term floor lease is completed.

It’s not recognized how lengthy the bottom lease could be — they usually vary between 50 and 99 years — and it is also not but recognized how a lot Penn State would possibly obtain for the sale.

Ball declined to debate the 2 Penn State resorts however, general, stated Scholar Lodge Group has been happy up to now with its enterprise across the space.

“State School has been extremely good to the Scholar Lodge Group,” he stated. “And we simply hope to proceed to be a very good associate in the neighborhood and strengthen our relationship with the college, with the companies and with the native residents.”