Emory will demolish the Emory Inn in June 2013 to make room for Phase II of the mixed-use, residential-retail project Emory Point.
The Inn – owned by Emory University and managed by Crestline Hotels and Resorts as a commercial use hotel – is a French style inn adjacent to the Emory Conference Center Hotel.
Emory administrators said the demolition of the Inn will not have an impact on the estimated 2.5 million visitors that come to the Emory campus every year.
Mike Mandl, Emory's executive vice president of finance and administration, said he hopes that when the Emory Inn is demolished, visitors will stay at the Emory Conference Center Hotel.
The Conference Center Hotel added 127 new rooms a few years ago in anticipation of the Inn's demolition.
Following the Inn's scheduled demolition, Cousins Properties Inc. will begin construction on Phase II of Emory Point where the Emory Inn currently resides on Clifton Road.
The added phase will bring 240 apartment units and 40,000 square feet of retail property.
Jason Frost, vice president of development for Cousins Properties Inc., expressed his excitement with the response that he has seen from the Emory community toward the expansion of Emory Point.
Frost added that he expects Emory students to take advantage of the various restaurants and shops that will be available at the new complex.
"We are very excited from the results and the response we have seen from the retailers and the residents of Emory Point and are excited for continuing on with the project," Frost commented in an interview with the Wheel.
Although the Inn was set for demolition in July 2011, the Emory Inn completed a renovation that included improvements to 107 guestrooms, public spaces and the swimming pool.
Mandl wrote in an email to the Wheel that even though the demolition had been planned for that time, the renovations were necessary at the time.
He noted that the improvements that were made were minimal. Revenue from the Emory Inn since the addition of the renovations fully paid for the improvements.
Many Emory students have spent a night at the Emory Inn prior to their first day of school as well as during their visit to Emory as prospective students.
College freshman Michelle Zeng wanted to stay at the Emory Conference Center Hotel the night before school started but said her father accidentally booked the Emory Inn after mistaking it for the Emory Conference Center Hotel.
"[The Inn] was decent," Zeng remarked. "It was a like two or three star hotel. It's not like a Hilton."
She added that she believed the Inn is not nearly as nice as the Emory Conference Center Hotel.
College freshman Andrew Mitchell stayed at the Emory Inn with the Emory men's soccer team during the week leading up to the beginning of this school year.
He said that he thought the rooms at the Emory Inn were fairly basic. He added that they simply followed the typical hotel room setup with a bathroom, TV, night stand and two beds. However, he commented, the rooms contained nothing more than that.
"[The hotel rooms] were better than your average holiday inn," Mitchell said, "but they weren't spectacular."
–By Dustin Slade
