The Hyatt hotel is to be built in place of the Orange Grove Bistro, and will benefit our school tremendously.

As a commuting student at CSUN, I experienced the necessity of an on-campus hotel when I first attended Big Show in 2017. Living in Orange County, which is about an hour to an hour and a half drive, depending on traffic, I decided to find a hotel last minute after the show. Of course, the odds were not in my favor, and all rooms were either booked, or located so far away that I might as well have driven home and that is what I ended up doing. In light of this experience, and after finding out about this development, I believe this hotel can be beneficial to our community.

This hotel can give our families, faculty and athletes a place to stay when they travel to our fine campus. There’s roughly 40,000 students here at Cal State Northridge, and that’s not even including faculty, athletes, and visitors to our campus. With the closest, relatively nice hotel approximately 2-5 miles away, which is a pretty far walk for those who don’t own a vehicle, a hotel right on campus is a good option for people who go to a game, showcase or any other school function and dread driving home late at night.

A new building on campus means more room for employment, and those students with an interest in hotel management, hospitality, tourism and more can start their careers, as campus interns, at the same place they start their education. Not only that, but the Hyatt is a chain with a good reputation, and it would be an honor to have our campus associated with such a prestigious organization. This new development can be a stepping stone to our students’ careers and this is something of which we all should take advantage.

Some people, on the other hand, may oppose this development, thinking that it will impact our budget, and that the school should be focused on other matters like parking. However, this is not the case. It’s funded entirely by the developer, which means that there will not be money taken away from any of our fine programs. Not only that, but the development of our hotel can be a jump-start towards some of our students’ careers.

In conclusion, the development of this new hotel can not only benefit the school and its visitors, but it can also benefit the students and faculty. With this development, it can provide more practical job experience to students here at CSUN and also give people a place to stay that is both close by and safe. Although I will miss my afternoons of relaxing before class at the Orange Grove Bistro, I have high hopes for this development and wonder what other kinds of developments are in store for this fine university.

Written by Diamond Shipman