University Heights hotel opens June 3 after four years and multiple delays

Up until recently, the Courtyard by Marriott Iowa City-University Heights — located at 901 Melrose Ave — was planned to be newly open to guests on Thursday, May 27. One final delay from Marriott now places the opening on Thursday, June 3, almost exactly two years after University Heights' first hotel broke ground.

“The city council awarded the certificate of occupancy on Thursday, May 20 ... everything had to be reviewed before the city could issue this," said University Heights mayor Louise From. “It’s just so exciting, the day is coming and I can’t wait until everyone can come see it.”

Navigating a year of COVID-19

Even leading up to the groundbreaking two years ago, prior to the emergence of the novel coronavirus, hotel owner Greg Stiltner and University Heights city council had already been in long talks since 2017 to make the project possible.

COVID-19 just led to more delays and canceled plans, though Stiltner is pleased with how the hotel is shaping up in its final days of preparation.

"My vision was to give University Heights a product they could be proud of, they put their trust in me to create something on this four-acre lot that they would be happy with," Stiltner said. "Everybody told them not to let me do this, 18 months it took to get through city council ... I can't be more appreciative. They gave me an opportunity right across from Kinnick Stadium."

Stiltner is not only co-owner of this new hotel, but also the Coralville SpringHill Suites, and he's president of the North Liberty-based Stiltner Electric. He might also be recognizable to locals as a member of the University of Iowa wrestling team in the early 1990s. 

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Other than not hitting the intended Aug. 1, 2020 opening date, the biggest canceled plan for the new Marriott hotel is the omission of the Graze restaurant on its top floor.

According to the hotel's director of sales, Kelly Murphy, the strain of the pandemic made it riskier for the local restaurant to move into the sixth-floor space and the restaurant owner (Peter Harman) decided to back out.

"COVID-19 hit, and the owner had to re-evaluate," Murphy said, explaining that Stiltner spent some time considering other restaurants. "Obviously COVID isn't a time to ask a restaurateur to invest a lot of money, so (Stiltner) decided to keep it and it's now called 'The Heights Rooftop Event Center.'"

While the remainder of the plans largely remained intact, COVID-19 meant that Stiltner went through periods when contractors and IT people he worked with were understaffed and building materials were delayed or unavailable.

"COVID definitely was a big impact (but) other than that, everything else went somewhat good," Stiltner said, estimating the hotel could potentially have opened five months sooner were it not for COVID-19, the after-effects of which still make it difficult to say what the immediate future will look like for the hotel.

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As Murphy pointed out, corporate travel is beginning to resume, as is travel for club sports. Additionally, the location has spaces where weddings could be held to accommodate "pent-up demand" from the pandemic.

“This market is still recovering from COVID from a hotel occupancy standpoint and even from an ADR (Average Daily Rate) standpoint," she said. "The market is still remounting so we’re not quite sure what to expect as soon as the doors open.”

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Hotel offerings & amenities 

When Kelly Murphy started working for the Courtyard earlier this year, she was able to witness the possibilities of the Heights Rooftop Event Center almost immediately.

"Day two or three on the job (for me) was the spring (football) practice," she recalled. "I grew up in Iowa City, I've been going to football games with my dad since I was five or six. Football is near and dear to me so I thought, 'I gotta go up there and see what I can see.'"

Back when the Graze still expected to move into the space, Harman had predicted guests would be able to see into the stadium's north end zone. While it's not possible to see the field itself, the vantage point still offers a line of sight into the stadium.

"I could see the jumbotron, I could hear the music, I could hear the announcer, I just couldn't see the field," said Murphy. "I envision that this is going to be a really good option for people that want to tailgate or stay and watch the game from here."

Though game days will undoubtedly be a hectic time for the hotel, opening on the cusp of summer allows staff to have a few months to become familiar with normal operations before fall football arrives.

"We're still working on game day strategies," said Murphy. "Right now the goal is to get us open next week, get everybody trained, get our staff acclimated to actually having guests in the building. But shortly after that, we're going to be figuring out what our football strategy's going to be."

The ground floor of the hotel is occupied by a bar/restaurant that can seat roughly 150 people with abundant patio seating which is, according to Murphy, roughly twice the size of similar Marriott Courtyard locations.

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"I think of it as an upscale sports bar," Murphy said.

The restaurant on the ground floor offers typical Marriott hotel menu items as of now, but Stiltner hopes to continue to customize and iterate on not only the menu but the hotel itself to serve the local market.

"I'm constantly going to be improving, making it better," said Stiltner. "I still have a lot of wall art I want to put up ... I was hands-on with the building and I'm gonna be hands-on when it comes to the food as well, and if it's not right I want to fix it."

Though the hotel is open to guests for day-of bookings, Murphy doesn't expect the location's full reservation system to be online until June 18. Though reservations for the 6th-floor space are open now and have already begun to fill, that area likely won't open until late June.

Building a future in University Heights

As much pushback as mayor From had to contest with to make the hotel happen, her hope is that the population of University Heights — a little over 1,000 people — will benefit from the addition.

Back in 2017 when the hotel was first proposed a 7% hotel/motel tax was voted on and ultimately implemented.

"It's highly likely that this commercial property could contribute about $150,000 a year in property tax, and in a city with a roughly $1 million budget, that's a lot," said then University Heights council member Mike Haverkamp before the 2017 vote. "If we pass the hotel/motel tax ... there are various projections of hotel/motel tax money being in the neighborhood of $300,000 a year, almost a 50% budget increase for the city."

Though University Heights is still waiting to see how the hotel will be received, From predicts that funds brought in by the hotel for the city will be able to fund "street projects ... better bikeways (and) better walking for pedestrian traffic" relatively early on. 

“I guess we’re thinking infrastructure first," said From. "Different council members have talked about some kind of – doing some kind of housing program so we can have more residential homes. There’s a lot of dreams about what we can do and improve.”

Though these future plans have yet to be decided, there are at least a few other details surrounding the hotel meant to immediately benefit the residents of University Heights.

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“One of the things in the developers' agreement is that if you’re 18 or older you can buy a membership to the swimming pool or workout room or both, only if you’re a resident of University Heights," From said.

While next Thursday is when the hotel is open for business, From is hoping to celebrate the hotel in a bigger way once the hotel has found its footing and vaccines are a little further along. The mayor hopes to have a ribbon-cutting in July to welcome the wider community to the building. 

"My vision is a place to eat and drink (not just a hotel), socialize and be happy," said Stiltner. "That what it is for me, just being able to come to the facility and enjoy it."

Isaac Hamlet covers arts, entertainment and culture at the Press-Citizen. Reach him at ihamlet@press-citizen.com or (319)-688-4247, follow him on Twitter @IsaacHamlet.