Time's almost up.
In two weeks the Carolina Inn is scheduled to reopen after a ten-month, $13.5 million renovation project. Will it be ready?
"We haven't moved our date," said Terry Murphy, general manager of the inn. "We are still holding to the week of Sept. 5."
While much work remained, Murphy said Friday, most of it involved work that the contractors have assured him can be completed rather quickly.
Murphy said he was excited about the prospect of reopening the 71-year-old inn.
"I think to accomplish what we have accomplished in nine and a half months is incredible," Murphy said. "I know that the product we are going to unveil is going to be worth the wait."
Eating out
When the inn reopens, the most noticeable difference for faculty and staff members will be the new restaurant.
Gone will be the Garden Room cafeteria, long a favorite lunch spot for many University employees. Instead folks will dine in the 140-seat Carolina Crossroads restaurant, featuring a lunch buffet line in addition to menu offerings, Murphy said.
"We can't duplicate the cafeteria, but we don't want to disregard the cafeteria's patrons," he said. That's why the new restaurant will feature competitively priced buffet breakfasts and lunches, he said.
While lunch in the old Garden Room cafeteria cost as little as $3.50, lunch in the Carolina Crossroads restaurant will begin at about $6 and go up to about $12, Murphy said.
"I think it will be reasonable and competitive with everything in the Chapel Hill area," he said.
"We know the people who came to the cafeteria are the breakfast and lunch crowd," Murphy said. "We want them to come back."
But he suggested folks telephone ahead for reservations. That's because space is going to be tight. The new restaurant will have about half the number of seats available as in the old Garden Room and Hill Room restaurants combined, he said. The number for reservations is 918-2777.
The restaurant will have a new entrance for people walking from campus. The inn's original entrance, on the semicircular driveway on Columbia Street, will serve as an entrance to the restaurant, he said.
Making room for conferences
Murphy said he knew many people would miss the old Garden Room, but to make the inn self-supporting, more space was needed for conference rooms. The Garden Room was converted into a ballroom that can be used as meeting space.
"We are able to target new markets that we weren't able to before," said Murphy, who works for Doubletree Corp., the hotel management firm managing the inn for the University. Under the terms of the lease, after paying expenses, including Doubletree's management fee, debt service and establishment of reserves, any profits from the inn would go to the University's libraries, he said.
Murphy said the inn would continue to pursue conference and meetings related to the University.
"Anything related with the University has been our bread and butter and will continue to be," he said. "But now we will be able to capture the larger conferences that we hadn't been able to before."
Conferences as far away as 1997 already have been booked for the inn, Murphy said. The inn is preparing a marketing effort aimed at state associations and another geared toward corporations in Research Triangle Park and elsewhere to convince them Carolina Inn would be a good place for their meetings, executive retreats and strategic planning conferences, he said.
Bedding down
Not all of the inn will open at one time.
All of the first-floor public areas--including the restaurant, main lobby and conference rooms--and 75 of the 185 guest rooms will open first, Murphy said. More guest rooms will come on line on a daily basis after that.
Oct. 1 is the target date to have the entire project completed, he said.
The project includes a new wing on the site of the old Alumni House. The wing, which will be the last portion of the project to be completed, will include 56 new guest rooms, Murphy said.
The inn will be divided into two categories of guest rooms--historic and deluxe, Murphy said, with the smaller rooms in the oldest section of the inn comprising the historic rooms. Rates for the smaller rooms will begin at $95 per night, while rates for the larger rooms will begin at $109, he said.
The guest rooms have been modernized, with central air conditioning and other amenities, such as extra phone lines for computer modems or fax machines.
Parking
It's now going to cost money to park at the inn, Murphy said. The parking system has been designed to assure the inn's customers will have a space to park.
"If we reopened with the system in which we did not manage our parking lot, it would have been criminal," he said.
However, people driving to the inn to eat will be allowed to park for up to two hours free by using a new valet service, Murphy said. A gated self-parking lot will be available to diners if there is space available, he said.
Overnight guests will have the option of parking in the self-park lot or using valet parking. Overnight parking in the self-park lot will be $3, while valet parking will cost $5, Murphy said. For people attending a meeting or social function at the inn, the cost will be $1 per hour and a half, with a maximum of $4, he said.
Hired help
Murphy said the inn had rehired about 40 of the 150 people who worked there before the inn closed for the renovation. He expected that number to rise a bit when students who had worked at the inn return to town and seek jobs.
Murphy said many of the new positions pay less than they did when the employees were on the University's payroll, but that the cost-cutting was needed to help make the inn profitable.
"It's not like we were ogres and cut and slashed," he said. "It's strictly a function of being competitive in your own arena. When we established compensation levels and benefits packages, we surveyed all the hotels in the Triangle area to see what was the going rate and then positioned ourselves appropriately."
He said he was happy to have former employees come back.
"Anytime we can get someone who knows the inn, that really is a huge benefit to us," he said.
Open house planned
The University and local communities will be invited to open houses once the inn is ready, Murphy said. Dates haven't been set, but it will be on a Sunday and Monday sometime soon, he said.
"We're certainly excited to get back," Murphy said. "We're real excited to show it off."
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