Liberty University has bought a hotel to house students until a new on-campus residential tower is built.
The university paid about $4.5 million to acquire the 130-room Quality Inn last week.
Liberty is demolishing four campus dorms and replacing them with an eight-story, 1,200-bed tower. The tower is scheduled to open in the fall of 2014.
Chancellor Jerry Falwell tells The News & Advance (http://bit.ly/Yvz6iC ) that housing students at the hotel will allow them to stay together.
Falwell says the site could revert to a hotel after the student housing project is completed. But no decision has been made.
Liberty bought another hotel, the Wingate, in June. Falwell says university officials decided not to convert it into student housing because of the need for visitor lodging.
