(Columbia-AP) Oct. 7, 2003 - After a year of arguments and threatened law suits the University of South Carolina will apparently be getting into the hospitality business after all, despite earlier efforts by the local hotel industry to keep them out. Both sides say the agreement will help buffer the impact on business at area hotels and motels, which was the primary complaint.

The University of South Carolina, with the help of Governor Mark Sanford, reached an agreement with South Carolina and Columbia hotel owners (read it here) to build a $12.5 million, 117-room hotel on Pendleton Street in downtown Columbia to house visitors to the US Justice Department's National Advocacy Center.

The Greater Columbia Hotel and Motel Association opposed the hotel, saying it would put USC into competition with private businesses and would take guests away from them at a time when the industry is suffering in the slow economy.

The agreement announced Tuesday says the USC facility will be a non-commercial inn and won't be listed in reservation databases or on commercial Web sites for reservations and won't advertise in commercial publications.

Guest limits will be set for the inn, which will not have any occupants until 2005, for the first four years. In it's first year the Inn at USC can book only 65 percent of it's rooms, followed by 75 percent in the second year, 80 percent in the third year and 85 percent in the fourth. On the first day of the fifth year the 117-room inn can book at full occupancy.

Tom Sponseller of the Hospitality Association of South Carolina says slowly lifting the limits on occupancy will give the economy time to recover and local hotels time to adjust.

Both sides say the agreement keeps public and private business from stepping on one anothers' toes. James Gibson, the general manager of the Adams Mark Hotel, says the agreement also stipulates the end of legal wrangling, "We'll put aside any potential lawsuits that members of our association may have brought, and we agreed we would not block the zoning and any other issues from a lawsuit standpoint."

Also under the agreement USC isn't allowed to pursue any other hotel projects for seven years, and while it must not market the Inn at USC, the school will have to promote local hotels and motels on its web site.

The agreement was announced Tuesday morning at the Statehouse by representatives of USC officials, the USC Development Foundation and the Greater Columbia Hotel and Motel Association along with Governor Mark Sanford.

Sanford tried for weeks to get the two sides to agree to some sort of compromise. There are still questions about whether the Advocacy Center followed federal rules when it entered the deal.

An agreement signed by Advocacy Center director Mike Bailie promises that prosecutors training at the center would fill more than 40 percent of all "room nights" at the hotel available each year. a Following a complaint by a local hotel owner, the Justice Department says the Advocacy Center had no authority to promise nearly $2 million to the project.

Columbia's Planning Committee in September voted unanimously approve rezoning for the hotel, even though it would have less than the required number of parking spaces. The recommendation from the Planning Commission will now go before Columbia's city council on Wednesday.

reporting by Scott Hawkins

updated 2:35pm by Chris Rees