UA Tech Park Getting 100-room Hotel, Tech Space

By David Wichner for Arizona Daily Star
A four-story, 100-room hotel is planned for the UA Tech Park at the Bridges, where work is officially underway for the University of Arizona’s first tech-related building on the site.
Tech Parks Arizona has finalized a deal with HSL Properties to develop a Marriott-branded hotel at the corner of Kino Parkway and Tucson Marketplace Boulevard, Carol Stewart, associate VP for Tech Parks Arizona, said.
The hotel, which will also have meeting space for public, private and academic users — is projected to break ground in July and open in July 2021.
Stewart and other officials said the new tech building, dubbed The Refinery — in planning in some form for more than a decade — will become a critical center of technology development.
UA President Robert C. Robbins said the new tech building will help boost the UA to the level of other university technology hubs, noting that economic development is part of the UA’s responsibility as a land-grant institution.
The Boyer Co. will build and own the 120KSF building, and the UA will lease half that space under two leases recently approved by the Arizona Board of Regents. Construction is expected to be completed by summer 2021.
The UA will lease half of The Refinery from Boyer, with 45KSF housing Tech Launch Arizona — the university’s technology commercialization arm — and the UA Center for Innovation business incubator and its client startups.
The space also will feature corporate innovation centers, a student innovation zone, and convertible meeting, event, classroom and maker spaces, the UA said.
Under a 20-year sublease also with options, 15KSF will be subleased to the UA Applied Research Corp., a nonprofit corporation set up to partner on defense-related research.
Read more at Arizona Daily Star.