Apr 9, 2015 3 min read

It will be nearly four years between groundbreaking and ribbon-cutting, but the Hotel California is getting close to launch.

“We anticipate opening in late June,” said Robert Griffin, economic development director for the Redevelopment Authority of Washington County.

The authority owns California Technology Park, where construction on an 84-room Hampton Inn & Suites – the facility’s official name – is in the final stages. When completed, it will be California Borough’s only hotel.

“We are ecstatic about this,” Griffin said. “It’s a really good thing for the park to have a Hilton product.”

Work, he said, still has to be done in a number of areas, including the lobby, corridors and pool room, and some furniture and fixtures have not arrived.

The estimated cost of the 50,000-square-foot hotel is $12 million. It will be on five acres of the 138-acre park, which is just off Pennsylvania Turnpike Route 43, and near Interstate 70, Route 40 and, of course, California University.

That location is easily accessible by car, and Cal U. officials are hoping the hotel helps draw concerts, conventions and executive conferences to the $59 million convocation center on campus.

Griffin said the Redevelopment Authority is still attempting to attract a casual-dining restaurant to a lot near the inn. “A regional brand is more likely,” he said, “but a national chain is not out of the question.

“The completion of the hotel would make this more appealing.”

Construction has been a tedious process. Ground was broken Sept. 22, 2011, with a fall 2012 target for completion. Work, however, didn’t begin for two years – until September 2013 – because of budgetary measures and, to a lesser extent, soil issues.

Bill McGowen, executive director of the Redevelopment Authority, told the Observer-Reporter in late February 2014, if all went well, Hampton Inn & Suites could open six months later. That projection had to be pushed ahead another 10 months.

“There are a lot of factors” for this delay, Griffin said. “We had to coordinate with Hilton on a lot of things and we had to work at selecting a hotel operator.

Bear Construction of Southpointe is in charge of construction. California Hotel Associates Inc. of Warren, Ohio, is the owner and Marshall Hotels the operator.

A number of California Technology Park tenants have been in an expansion mode. The park, off Malden Road, is home to a number of businesses, including U.S. Corrugated, Perryman Co. and Rose Plastic. The state Department of Environmental Protection also has an office there.