Religious hotel to be reborn as area dorm

Where members of a tiny religious sect once stood singing hymns, students will soon rest in tanning beds and watch plasma-screen TVs.

The former Divine Tracy Hotel at 20 S. 36th St. has been sold for $9 million to Trammell Crow Co., which plans to transform the building into a student-friendly apartment complex with strikingly dorm-like amenities - including residential advisers, activities and even a dining hall and a meal plan.

Not to mention an exercise room and a game room.

The apartments are open to anyone, but they will be geared toward students from all local universities, according to the new management.

Until last June, the building was a hotel run by the Peace Mission Movement, a strict, peaceful sect founded by Rev. Major Jealous Divine, known as Father Divine.

Students living in the new apartment complex will pay a one-time fee for the academic year that will cover all expenses, from utilities to meals.

The price range is not yet determined, but Michael Hanley, vice president of professional services for Campus Advantage - the company that will manage the building - noted that, as these apartments offer services such as in-room housekeeping, the apartments will cost more than a dorm would.

"People stay with us because they know that it's the best bet for them," he said. "Students have so many other things to contend with without having to worry about utility bills."

Campus Advantage already manages 32 on- and off-campus student residences nationwide.

College freshman John Blahnik said that, depending on how much more the apartments would cost, he would consider living there, especially if a group of friends joined him.

"The meal plan is included in the building. It seems more efficient," he said. "I would get to meet Drexel people, who I don't really know too well."

But Sue Smith, Penn's spokeswoman for College Housing and Academic Services, said that while the apartments sound like a brilliant idea, Penn's college houses offer advantages including activities geared toward the Penn community and staff familiar with Penn.

"The Penn tradition and the Penn-specific knowledge that we can bring to students, in the end, is something students are really going to want," she said.

In honor of the Peace Mission Movement, Trammell Crow will provide scholarships of free room and board for four students a year over the next five years, said Joe Ritchie — a '99 Wharton MBA alumnus who is a vice president at Trammell Crow.

"They did it in honor of the work that has been carried on since 1950 at the Divine Tracy hotel, where many students from the University of Pennsylvania and also Drexel have been housed and fed," said Mother Divine, Father Divine's wife, born Edna Rose Ritchings.

Residential advisers will also live rent-free, and Campus Advantage will hire students for its leasing office, Hanley said.

With an occupancy of 255, Hanley predicts the building will form a close-knit community. The building will include single and double rooms; someone will even live in Father Divine's old room.

While at the hotel, guests adhered to the International Modest Code and men and women slept on separate floors. The Divine Tracy was popular for its rates, as low as $50 a night.

As the building undergoes renovations, chandeliers still loom overhead and sheet music entitled "Father Divine's Greetings to the Universe" remains on a windowsill.

Hanley said he hopes the building's history will persist in the apartment building.

"We want the students to share in the history," said Hanley. "We'll have fun with it."

The Peace Mission Movement sold the hotel in order to focus funds on a library at its mansion in Gladwyne, Pa., Mother Divine said.

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