UC Review: Campus Inn to be Homewood Suites on 41st and Walnut Sts.

UC Review: Campus Inn to be Homewood Suites on 41st and Walnut Sts.

While the name and location may have changed, the hotel’s former name, Campus Inn – originally planned for 40th and Pine, now Homewood Suites, has moved to 41st and Walnut Streets many of the proposed project’s particulars will remain the same.

Like Campus Inn, Homewood Suites will remain part of the Hilton chain as an extended stay hotel with 130-135 rooms and 9-10 floors. And like Campus Inn, the project has received overwhelming support from CHOP and Penn who need nearby hotels to accommodate the family members of patients, students or visiting faculty, explained the project’s developer, Tom Lussenhop, when he introduced the latest plans at the October 20th meeting before the Philadelphia Planning Commission.

Unlike Campus Inn, however, Homewood Suites will not receive financial backing from Penn because the site is not owned by the university but by Campus Apartments.

In fact, with the exception of one building, “Campus Apartments owns the entire block”, explained Lussenhop during a follow-up interview.

And that concentration of ownership is precisely what will allow Homewood Suites to create features like the driveway-like road, running alongside the hotel, behind the other buildings owned by Campus Apartments and back onto to 41st St., to contain traffic congestion caused by drop-offs or deliveries.

As for the guests’ cars, they will be stored at the garage on 40th and Walnut Streets which would also have been used by Campus Inn.

Unlike Campus, Homewood Suites will not be constructed in a residential neighborhood.

“In many respects it’s a site more established then the previous one,” said Lussenhop, adding, “It’s on a commercial corridor.”