Re: Even Skeptics Think the Convention Center Hotel is a Done Deal
“Could be vacant 290 days of the year”? You’re overreaching, Trey. The place would never be vacant. If you’re assuming it’ll be fully booked 75 days out of the year, the question becomes how full will it be the rest of the year?
I find it interesting that Crow is the only businessperson who doesn’t favor the hotel. And he has an obvious interest in killing the deal — or he thinks he has an interest. At our dog-and-pony show, Phillip Jones et al. said that all the other hotels in town, even the ones downtown, support the convention center hotel. They believe a rising tide will lift all ships.
9 Comments to “Re: Even Skeptics Think the Convention Center Hotel is a Done Deal”
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I’m not talking to you today, Rogers.
You’re right, Tim. It won’t be vacant for 290 days. Instead, during non-convention times, it will be competing with the privately-funded hotels downtown. And since a hotel owned by the public isn’t as concerned with its bottom line, it can offer deals that the other hotels cannot. This is happening all over the country.
I ask you, Tim, what kind of a message does it send to downtown businesses that the city is willing to use public money to compete against them? What’s next–a city-subsidized Six Flags?
Dallas’ hotel occupancy is terrible (60 percent) when compared to other major markets. How does adding more hotel rooms make any sense when the ones already here aren’t filled?
Just because other cities are doing it doesn’t make it right. Look at the stats from other cities. Talk to Dr. Heywood Sanders. Then see if you think this is such a good idea.
but… but…
if you build it they will come, right Tim?
No.
If you build it, we will pay.
In 2004, I asked Philip Jones what the number one hurdle to cross in order to rekindle the CC business. He stated unequivocally, repeal the exorbitant hotel/rental car taxes. The city building a hotel is utterly ridiculous.
Weakening an already dilute market rife with players who took personal risk to bolster the tax base in the long-a-slumbering city core? Brilliant, just brilliant.
You can’t change the Leppert’s spots.
I”m not sure where I fall on this one, but this is just silly logic:
“I ask you, Tim, what kind of a message does it send to downtown businesses that the city is willing to use public money to compete against them? What’s next–a city-subsidized Six Flags?”
I haven’t found a single business person who is FOR this white elephant…. at least not as long as the taxpayers are going to be holding the bag.
Tim, you can’t believe everything you’re told. In Crayton Webb’s column on this topic in the March issue of D CEO, Brooke Dieterlen of the Hotel Association of Greater Dallas said that “our membership is divided” on the new hotel –and that the association is staying neutral in the debate.