A $115 million endeavor to revitalize College Park’s Route 1 corridor with a hotel and conference center took an important step July 2.

The three-member state Board of Public Works unanimously approved the sale of a 3-acre parcel of university land to the University of Maryland College Park Foundation.

The board’s approval of the sale was vital for the continuation of the project, which is slated to open fall 2017.

“The state helped with some of the purchase originally years ago,” board member and state Treasurer Nancy Kopp said. “That is why the Board of Public Works was brought into this.”

The 3 acres are a part of the university’s campus. Selling it to the foundation, a nonprofit group affiliated with the university, rather than to a developer will allow the university to maintain control of the land as the project moves forward, said Michael King, chief financial officer and treasurer of the foundation.

“It also provides the foundation with an investment opportunity that’s relatively secure,” King said.

The foundation plans to lease the land to developer David Hillman of Southern Management Corp., the real estate management firm behind the Graduate Hills and Graduate Gardens developments.

“The foundation will be a landlord, and we will be a tenant. We have a long-term ground lease,” Hillman said.

Southern Management will build and operate the hotel and conference center, Brian Ullmann, the university’s marketing and communications assistant vice president, said.

While construction won’t begin until spring 2015, Hillman said the next step in the project is the land entitlement process, which includes approval of a site plan, public utilities, roads and applying for a building permit.

The hotel and conference center is expected to kick-start a decade-old improvements project — formerly known as East Campus — that had been scrapped and broken down into smaller ventures.

Ullmann noted the significant economic impact of the project: Once completed, the hotel and conference center is projected to create about 1,600 jobs and generate $62 million a year in economic activity.

But even more importantly, he said, is the catalyst effect that the project will hopefully elicit.

“President Loh has been very serious about creating a great college town around the University of Maryland,” Ullmann said. “He really views this hotel as a cornerstone of that development.”