When it comes to a college as big as the University of Central Florida (UCF), it’s no real surprise to find massive parking structures, an iconic football stadium, and a sprawl of buildings that make the UCF campus look more like a small city than a place of higher learning. Though the college does a great job of providing nearly everything a student and his or her guests could need within the confines of campus, one area that was seriously lacking was in lodging.
If you were a parent visiting your daughter during her freshman year, a guest professor invited to lecture or a business partner in town to talk numbers, you would have to find a place to lay your head in the surrounding Orlando area. That is, until 2019, when the UCF campus gets its first on-campus hotel. As architects on the project, all of us at Baker Barrios Architects are happy to work on this exciting venture, making visiting the university easier and more convenient than ever. Better yet, this hotel is set to create 40 permanent jobs and will consist of 179 rooms, a full-service restaurant, 10,000 square feet of conference and banquet facilities, and a 4,500-square-foot entertainment area.
Designed to reflect the quality of the UCF campus without coming off as kitschy or overly themed, the new hotel is sure to be a game changer for a college that has made an immeasurably positive impact on the Central Florida community.
