At the Pro-Hotel Party, It's all Hugs and High Fives as the Counting Nears the End

• @SI, Same thing with the antismoker ordinance. No compromises to allow any smoking whatsoever indoors, even in adult venues. This council is accumulating a history of wasting money on pet projects with no end in sight. Hell,the bonds for the CC Hotel can't even be sold yet. This is nothing short of disgusting. The voter turnout for Dallas county was 10.61%. I guess the average Joes stayed home. I came close to that. I went to Richland College to cast my votes Saturday morning for my district. There were campaign signs plastered all over the street along Abrams Road, yet none on campus directing people where to go for voting. I went into the admin building to find out where to go. Nobody there knew anything. I'm serious. It was like they were completely unaware that this was an election day. I even asked students and other people walking around the campus. No joy. I went back later in the afternoon and campus security actually drove me on a golf cart to the right building for voting. No wonder people don't vote.

• But I like buildings, and even though I live in a suburban-type neighborhood (within the city limits of Dallas), I love to spend time downtown and believe it's good for the city as a whole to have a successful and vibrant central business and entertainment district. I supported the arena back in 1998 (or whenever it was). I support the revitalization of the Merc. I love DART (I ride the train all the time and am excited for its continued expansion over the next several years). I think decking Woodall Rogers is a pretty damn cool idea, and I love seeing that park take shape on Main. But projects like the AAC/Victory and the Mercantile Building aren't the same as the hotel. The hotel is the city paying all the bills to build a hotel - that includes cost overruns in the construction, operating losses, and everything in between. And the only study we've seen so far showed a required average room price that's significantly more than what convention center hotels in competing markets charge, on average. And while the required occupancy rate is above the Dallas-market average, it doesn't seem as aggressive compared to convention center hotels in other markets (to be honest, even if the convention center hotel doesn't result in any new conventions coming to Dallas, it should leach enough from competing hotels to at least come close to the required average occupancy. Of course, that's not a good thing for the local economy as a whole). As we've seen with the Trinity Parkway, costs tend to go up. And as we've seen time and again with large projects, big building projects often go overbudget. If the city had sought out a private developer to actually build the hotel with subsidies from the city (like with Victory and the AAC and the Merc and any number of other local projects), we would be protected from the downside. No cost overruns - no operating losses coming out of the general fund. Even the Mayor said that would be the best option until he changed his mind four days later. By paying for the whole thing, have we compromised the city's ability to fund other projects that would make downtown more vibrant? (The city has limited bonding power, after all. By building the entire hotel and being on the hook for cost overruns and any operating losses, we are spending a large chunk of money that may have been better spent elsewhere). So what happens if we can't get $200 per night on average? What happens if we can't get 5.5% on the bonds? What happens if the thing costs $600 million or more? What happens to the financial numbers then? Worst of all, though, I think this hotel shows a failure of imagination. We thought about all the things we could do to make downtown more vibrant, and we decided that a convention center hotel was the best we could do. Half a billion dollars or more to spend, and that's the best we can do? Not to mention that it doesn't seem like it has much benefit for the cost. I mean, this hotel will bring an additional 220,000 people to downtown a year if it's successful. It will take half a billion dollars to get them there. A minor league baseball stadium might cost $10 million and bring 150,000 people downtown. They're not the same people, of course, but if the goal is a vibrant downtown, conventioneers aren't the only way to get a vibrant downtown (actually, conventioneers may not make for a vibrant downtown at all. We have about a million conventioneers going downtown each year already that haven't seemed to have made much difference to the vibrancy of downtown. Another 220,000 may or may not make any difference). But, you know, we weren't given a choice. We were told hotel or no hotel. Other options to improve downtown weren't even considered. And if we want to make a vibrant downtown, shouldn't we, you know, take a look at downtown as a whole and decide the best way to generate the development we want as part of a comprehensive plan rather than the piecemeal method we've been using that hasn't seemed to have achieved the results we want? So, in the end, I want a vibrant downtown, and I don't mind spending public money to do so, but we should spend smart rather than just spend to spend. And finally, I would note that there are cities with convention center hotels that don't have vibrant downtowns. What evidence is there that Dallas will be different than that?

• I love how all you bitter people who live in your swanky "suburbs" put down those of us who long to make downtown a vibrant city. While you people settle for the local "super target", we fight to make downtown Dallas a relevant and amazing downtown for years to come. So continue to vote for your local PTA boards, while the rest of us continue to make sure Dallas stays on the path of becoming a city of prosperity.

• Lol Leppert and friends will win every single time because Dallasites worship businessmen. They'll vote to give a rich man jewels in the form of massive subsidies for huge glamor projects in uptown before giving an average man transportation options, giving the city bike lanes, and a million other smaller priorities that define a beautiful, dynamic, and successful people. And so Dallas is and probably always be an average city in terms of the quality of life for the majority of residents.

• And I wish I was Suburban Idiot's brother, so Kori would be my Mom, too! I could ask for some assistance with my driving, and she'd buy me a new Bentley convertible.

• I wish Kori was my Mom. I could ask for some assistance with my homework, and she'd just do it all for me.

• Since when did "some assistance" become "paying for the whole damn thing"? Now Ross Perot, Jr. is going to come and ask for the rest of his "responsible development" money since, way back then, developers actually paid for at least part of the projects.

• Yes, and Victory Park turned out to be such a good investment. Dontchafind?

TotalComments: 8