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The Forum - 08/18/2004
By Mike Nowatzki
NDSU foundation signs hotel
A Fargo hotelier and North Dakota State University alum said Tuesday he will build a $4 million hotel on the Fargo campus and eventually donate it to the NDSU Development Foundation.
Russ Maring, principal of Sonmar Management Corp., said he has entered an agreement with the foundation to build an extended-stay hotel north of the Research 2 building in the NDSU Research and Technology Park.
Maring said he will own and operate the hotel and donate it to the foundation after seven years.
“It should be a very viable economic project for them at the time of the transfer,” he said.
With 70 to 75 rooms, the Candlewood Suites hotel will cater primarily to scientists and research executives working at the research park. It also could attract guests from the nearby Fargodome, Maring said.
The three-story hotel also will serve as a hands-on training ground for the 70 students enrolled in NDSU’s hospitality and tourism management program, said Virginia Clark Johnson, dean of human development and education at NDSU.
Although the details aren’t final, she said officials have discussed putting a classroom in the hotel. Students also could learn the hotel’s software and shadow hotel managers, she said.
“If things go as we all hope, it’s a tremendous gift to the program,” she said.
Construction will begin this fall or next spring, depending on how long it takes to win approval from the Federal Aviation Administration, Maring said.
The hotel site is adjacent to the northwest-southeast runway at Hector International Airport.
Because the building will be similar in height to the three existing buildings in the research park, “I guess I wouldn’t anticipate any issues there,” said Shawn Dobberstein, the airport’s executive director.
Maring said the NDSU Development Foundation will lease the two-acre plot of land along 19th Avenue North from the research park, and he will sublease it from the foundation.
NDSU has talked about the need for a campus hotel since the early 1990s. The idea gained steam in May when a consultant’s feasibility study found someone could profitably operate a hotel on or near campus.
Maring’s willingness to donate the hotel was a major selling point for the foundation, Executive Director Jim Miller said.
“We have had ongoing conversations over the years with several different people involved in the development business, and this is one where they finally came to the table and said, ‘We’re ready to do this,’ ” Miller said.
Maring is a member of the foundation’s board of trustees. He earned a business degree from NDSU in 1963 and established a chain of Select Inn hotels in North Dakota, selling them in the late 1980s.
Sonmar Management Corp. owns seven hotels in Oregon and Washington, including Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites and Holiday Inn properties.
Extended-stay hotels have gained popularity in recent years in Fargo-Moorhead, a metro area that boasts 3,557 hotel rooms, said Cole Carley, executive director of the F-M Convention and Visitors Bureau. One of the last hotels built in Fargo was the Main-Stay Suites, an extended-stay hotel, he said.
Maring’s hotel will be the fourth building in the 55-acre NDSU research park.
Alien Technology Corp. plans to start construction next spring on the fifth, a “smart tag” manufacturing plant, said Tony Grindberg, the research park’s executive director. “We think it’s going to be a good fit,” he said of the hotel.
Readers can reach Forum reporter Mike Nowatzki at (701) 241-5528
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