wfn.org | UCC names hotel franchise and manager

[powellb@ucc.org]

April 15, 1997
United Church of Christ                         
Hans Holznagel
(216) 736-2214                
E-mail:  holznagh@ucc.org
Laurie Bartels
(216) 736-2213
E-mail:  bartelsl@ucc.org
On the World Wide Web:                                      
National church agency names franchise and manager
for downtown Cleveland hotel

      CLEVELAND --  A 141-room hotel being built behind the
national offices of the United Church of Christ in downtown
Cleveland has been approved for a franchise with Radisson
Hotels and has signed a management contract with Marathon
Associates, Inc., a local hotel management company.  Vern
Fuller, Marathon Associates president, has been named hotel
general manager.
      The United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, one of
13 national agencies based at the UCC offices at 700 Prospect
Ave., had considered several hotel franchise options over a
period of months.  After careful consideration of the
alternatives, the Board of Directors of the limited liability
company that will own the hotel decided to apply for the
Radisson franchise, which was approved by Radisson's Executive
Committee on March 26, said Robert P. Noble, Executive
Associate of the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries
and coordinator of the hotel project.
      Groundbreaking at the site, near Gund Arena and Jacobs
Field on Huron Road, is scheduled for April 26, with a grand
opening anticipated in early 1998.  Actual construction is
scheduled to begin in May, with a target date to begin
foundation work on May 19.  The Albert M. Higley Company,
based in Cleveland, is general contractor for the hotel
project.  
      The Radisson Hotel at Gateway will be the third Radisson
in the Greater Cleveland area and the only one in downtown
Cleveland.  "We are pleased that our hotel will be part of the
national network of Radisson and we look forward to the
benefits of its telephone and internet reservation network,"
said the Rev. Thomas E. Dipko, Executive Vice-President of the
United Church Board for Homeland Ministries.
      Vern Fuller, president of Marathon Associates, whose
management contract was finalized April 9, will serve as
opening general manager.  Fuller most recently was general
manager at the Embassy Suites Hotel in downtown Cleveland. 
Fuller has 25 years experience in hotel management, including
developing and opening four hotels.  He served as President of
the Greater Cleveland Hotel/Motel Association (1982-1983 and
1985-1986), as well as President and Chairperson of the Ohio
State Hotel/Motel Association (1988 and 1989, respectively).
      The United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, a
nonprofit corporation, formed a limited liability company to
build and own the hotel.  The 700 Prospect Corporation -- the
UCC-related corporation which owns the land -- is part of the 
limited liability company.
      The hotel will be open to the public, but the United
Church Board for Homeland Ministries also sees it as a good
means of containing costs of church-related meetings. 
National boards and agencies of the United Church of Christ,
which would get below-market room rates at the new hotel, use
an estimated 4,500 hotel room-nights per year for meetings in
greater Cleveland.
      The Board for Homeland Ministries will finance the hotel
project through Cleveland-based KeyBank.  Original plans were
to use a portion of the Board's invested funds, accumulated
through gifts and bequests since the 19th century, currently
invested in stocks and bonds.  Financing plans were changed
when Homeland Board officials learned that the $11 million
needed to build the 8-story hotel and to purchase an adjacent
5-story building currently housing Coaches Restaurant could be
borrowed at a rate less than the average rate of return earned
by its invested funds.  This allows the invested stocks and
bonds to remain untouched and continue to earn a current rate
of 14 percent.  No offering plate dollars will be used to
build the hotel or to buy the next-door building.
      The 1.5-million-member United Church of Christ, with
more than 6,100 local churches in the United States and Puerto
Rico, is a 1957 union of the Evangelical and Reformed Church
and the Congregational Christian Churches.  Its national
offices have been in Cleveland since 1990.
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