The forthcoming hotel and conference center being built on the edge of the JMU campus, held its ceremonial groundbreaking yesterday.  The project is due to be complete by March 2018. 

Read more in today's Daily News Record article, or read on for some highlights....

• The hotel will contained 230 rooms.
   
  
• The conference center will offer 21,000 - 2,000 square feet of meeting space.
   
  
• The developer is a JMU graduate, Paul Gladd with dpM Partners of Gaithersburg, MD.
   
• The hotel will feature 180 traditional rooms, 50 extended-stay rooms, a farm-to-table restaurant, a coffee bar and wine bar.
   
• The developer is paying $35M to build the hotel, while the JMU Foundation is loaning $11M to the Harrisonburg Industrial Development Authority to cover the cost of the conference center construction.  The JMU Foundation will be repaid with tax revenues generated by the facility.
  

There are quite a few more interesting details in today's Daily News Record article.