Winter Park, Fla., hotel to begin expansion this summer

The Alfond Inn, owned by the nearby Rollins College and located in Winter Park, Fla., announced plans to begin expanding the property late this summer, with work expected to finish Q1 2021. The upgrades will introduce 73 new guestrooms, a wellness center and spa, a second swimming pool area with cabanas and 2,000 additional square feet of meeting and public space.

The 73 new accommodations will bring the inn’s total room count to 185. They will include luxury rooms and several large suites guests can use for meetings or have converted into two-bedroom suites.

 Also of note, the hotel will use the new public space to feature additional artwork from The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, an extension of the Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College.

“This is an exciting time for The Alfond Inn and for Winter Park as we embark on the next phase of the hotel’s evolution,” Jesse Martinez, The Alfond Inn’s general manager, said in a statement. “The new guestrooms, the additional function space and the new spa are true game changers, allowing us to serve our guests even better and to fulfill our philanthropic goals, which are always at the heart of our mission.”

Direct profits from the hotel go to the Alfond Scholars Program. Scholarships, worth more than $240,000, include tuition, room and board and go to first-year students in the College of Liberal Arts at Rollins College. Since the inn was built in 2013, the program has awarded 53 full scholarships.