wfn.org | UCC breaks ground for hotel

[powellb@ucc.org]

April 26, 1997
Office of Communication
United Church of Christ                   
Laurie Bartels, (216) 736-2213
E-mail:  bartelsl@ucc.org                 
Hans Holznagel, (216) 736-2214
E-mail:  holznagh@ucc.org
On the World Wide Web:  http://www.ucc.org

Church members don hard hats to break ground
for downtown Cleveland hotel

      CLEVELAND -- Joined by hundreds of hard-hatted church
members and the mayor of Cleveland, officials of the United
Church of Christ broke ground today (Saturday, April 26) at
the site of the 141-room hotel that a national church agency
will build near Jacobs Field and Gund Arena.
      Donning construction hats for the event were some 225
UCC ministers and lay people who serve as corporate members of
the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, the agency
building the hotel.  Coming from throughout the United States
and Puerto Rico, they are in Cleveland for their three-day
annual meeting.
      The site, across Huron Road from the Gateway East
parking garage, is behind the UCC's national office building
at 700 Prospect Avenue.
      Actual hotel construction will start in May, with a
grand opening anticipated in early 1998.  Radisson Hotels
recently approved the hotel for a franchise application.
      Participants in today's ceremony included Cleveland
Mayor Michael R. White, UCC President Paul H. Sherry, and
officers and executives of the United Church Board for
Homeland Ministries:  Richard A. Hopkins, Rowayton, Conn.,
corporate president of UCBHM; Ha'aheo Guanson, Honolulu, who
chairs UCBHM's Board of Directors; UCBHM Executive Vice-
President Thomas E. Dipko; and UCBHM General Secretary Robert
P. Noble, coordinator of the hotel project.
      The Albert M. Higley Company of Cleveland is general
contractor.  Vern Fuller of Cleveland has been named the
hotel's first general manager.  Jefferson B. Riley of
Centerbrook Associates, Essex, Conn., is the architect.
      The United Church Board for Homeland Ministries will
borrow from Cleveland-based KeyBank the $11 million needed to
build the 8-story hotel and to purchase an adjacent 5-story
building next door, which currently houses Coaches Restaurant. 
No offering-plate dollars will be used to build the hotel or
buy the next-door building.  The UCBHM, a nonprofit
corporation, has formed a limited liability company to build
and own the hotel.
      The hotel will be open to the public, but the United
Church Board for Homeland Ministries also sees it as a good
means to help contain UCC meeting costs.  National boards and
agencies of the United Church of Christ, which would receive
below-market room rates, use an estimated 4,500 hotel room-
nights per year for meetings in greater Cleveland, where its
national offices have been located since 1990.
      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 Congregational Christian Churches
and the Evangelical and Reformed Church.  The United Church
Board for Homeland Ministries, recognized as the UCC's
homeland mission arm, carries out programs in evangelism and
local church development, racial and social justice and the
publishing of books, church music, Christian education
curricula and other materials.

{[EDITORS AND PRODUCERS:  Here are excerpted quotes from today's
ground breaking of the hotel to be built by a national
church agency of the United Church of Christ.  Feel free to
use them in your coverage of the event.

Michael R. White, Mayor of Cleveland:

"Thank you again for deciding in 1990 to make Cleveland your home ...
and for deciding to be a catalyst for that which is good and proper
... By your decision to come to Cleveland, and to Prospect Avenue, you
are not only leading, you are leading by example.  You can make a
difference in the life blood of the community ... Thank you for your
faith, not only in God, but in our city."

The Rev. Dr. Paul H. Sherry, President of the United Church of Christ:
(excerpt from a Prayer of Dedication)

"God of us all ... we want to be a transformative presence in this
city.  We share your vision of a city of justice and compassion and
peace, not only for some, but for all.  We want to participate in the
unfolding of that vision; in the building of that city ... This day,
we dedicate the building to rise in this place to you.  May it be a
place of warm hospitality for all who walk through its doors.  May it
serve well not only the needs of the members of the United Church of
Christ, but so many others as well.  May it strengthen our committed
presence in this neighborhood and in this city.  May it provide
resources for ministry far into the future."

The Rev. Dr. Thomas E. Dipko, Executive Vice President, United Church
Board for Homeland Ministries:

"The building of this hotel for the needs of this church and for the
needs of this city ... [shows our] commitment to a gracious
hospitality ... shaped by our concern for justice ... [We are working
together to] make the church a blessing to this city, and make this
city a blessing to the world."

Ha'aheo Guanson, Chair, Board of Directors, United Church Board for
Homeland Ministries:

"This is an extraordinary moment ... a realization of our vision of
our church home.  [It is our vision] that members and guests will find
in this place their family home away from home."

APRIL 1997

#  #  #