Inn crowd tells State: be our guest, not competitor.

• Author: Murray, Arthur O.
• Position: Tar Heel Tattler

Government should operate more like business." That's a bromide of the commercial set, but the coda is usually unspoken: "Just don't compete against mine."

Consider the gripes of the North Carolina Travel and Tourism Coalition, the North Carolina Motel and Hotel Association and the North Carolina Golf Course Owners Association. They're grousing about N.C. State University's plans to build a $65 million resort hotel and conference center on Centennial Campus, a business park attached to the school. State will issue revenue bonds to pay for the 250-room, four-star hotel, which would have 29,000 square feet of meeting space and an Arnold Palmer-designed golf course. Construction would begin this fall, with the hotel opening in 2004.

Pat Corso, president and CEO of The Pinehurst Co., says neither he nor the travel and tourism groups -- he's a member of all three -- would squawk if the project were bankrolled privately. "But we don't believe it would be funded in the private sector," he says, because it likely won't be profitable. N.C. State's projections -- an initial occupancy rate of 60% and 12% growth over its first three years -- are too optimistic, Corso says.

Plus, the hotel and center would dwarf more traditional ones affiliated with universities. "The Broyhill Center at Appalachian State has 83 rooms, three-star quality and acceptable, functional meeting space. This facility is designed to cater to higher-end corporate meetings. We don't see how that correlates to the mission of the university."

Bob...