As the Jonesboro Hyatt Place Hotel & Convention Center faces delays, the other convention center being developed in Jonesboro hasn’t broken ground yet. However, the Embassy Suites and Red Wolf Convention Center is on schedule to open on the Arkansas State University campus before the start of the fall 2018 semester, months later than first projected, developer Tim O’Reilly said last week.
The reason for the delay is that “the design of these big projects just sometimes take longer than we would hope,” O’Reilly, CEO of O’Reilly Hospitality Management of Springfield, Missouri, said in an email to Arkansas Business last week.
Construction on the project was expected to start in the third quarter of last year, O’Reilly told Arkansas Business in August. And in February, he said that construction would begin before the middle of April. The project is expected to take 14-15 months to complete.
Last week, O’Reilly said he is awaiting the city’s final approval of architectural plans for the 202-room Embassy Suites hotel, 40,000-SF Red Wolf Convention Center and Houlihan’s restaurant. Killian Construction Co. of Springfield, Missouri, also is finalizing subcontractor agreements for the start of construction, he said. The groundbreaking will be held as soon as possible. “We are moving forward with this project as promised and [are] excited to be a part of the Jonesboro community,” O’Reilly said.
O’Reilly’s Jonesboro Hotel Partners LLC will lease space from A-State. No rent will be due for the first three years; then the university will collect $250,000 per year for years four through nine, plus up to 10 percent of revenue from its operation. For the 10th year and after, the rent will increase based on the Consumer Price Index.