wfn.org | UCC/Hotel contractor announced

[powellb@ucc.org]

Feb. 6, 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:  http://www.ucc.org
                                                
National church agency's hotel redesign now set for Feb. 20
hearing; local contractor selected

      CLEVELAND -- A national agency of the United Church of
Christ today requested permission from the City of Cleveland
to add an eighth floor and make other modifications to its
planned hotel near Gund Arena and Jacobs Field, but a city
committee tabled the proposal and requested further work.
     The city's Design Review Committee asked the United
Church Board for Homeland Ministries to return Feb. 20 with
revised plans.  Though they voiced no objections to an added
floor, committee members did express misgivings about proposed
display windows along Huron Road and asked the church agency
to consult with city planning staff on a redesign. 
      In other hotel news, The Albert M. Higley Co. has been
selected as contractor for the project following months of
evaluation in the bidding process.
      "Many factors were weighed in the decision about a
contractor, including price, references, and hotel experience,
the ability to work well in Cleveland and with unions, and the
ability to achieve significant participation by minority owned
subcontractors and affirmative action employment by all
subcontractors," said Robert P. Noble, coordinator of the
project for UCBHM.  "Another factor was experience working on
hotel facilities with nonprofit organizations like ourselves."
      Higley was founded in Cleveland in 1925. Its local
projects include the Cleveland Clinic Inn; Holiday Inns in
Conneaut and Ashtabula; the Kenyon College Inn, Gambier, Ohio;
the Oberlin Inn, Oberlin, Ohio, and the Realty One Corporate
Center in Independence, Ohio (formerly Broadview Savings &
Loan Company corporate headquarters). 
      The City of Cleveland's Design Review Committee and
Planning Commission approved the church agency's plans for a
seven-story, 93 room hotel last October.  The hotel will be
located on the north side of Huron Road behind the United
Church of Christ national offices at 700 Prospect Ave. 
      National boards and agencies of the United Church of
Christ use an estimated 4,500 hotel-room nights per year for
meetings in greater Cleveland.  The hotel could produce annual
savings of up to $130,000.
      The Rev. Dr. Thomas E. Dipko, executive vice-president
of the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries has
stressed that no "offering plate" dollars given by the UCC's
6,100 local churches toward the national and international
work of the United Church of Christ would be used to build the
hotel.
      Returns generated by the hotel will help support the
UCBHM's annual budget ministries in areas such as racial and
social justice, evangelism, local church development and
higher education.
      The 1.5-million-member United Church of Christ is a 1957
union of the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the
Congregational Christian Churches.  Its national offices have
been in Cleveland since 1990.

# # #