I regret that I couldn’t make it to the Illinois Finance Authority’s public hearing on Tuesday regarding the Wonderful Development (i.e., the proposed downtown Marriott hotel project). It looks like I would have been the only dissenting voice. The Journal Star reports that “Every person who publicly spoke before the authority was in favor of it. No one spoke in opposition.” Those who publicly spoke included Mayor Jim Ardis, Civic Center General Manager Debbie Ritschel, Peoria Area Convention and Visitors Bureau President/CEO Bob Marx, and “various trade groups.”
Mayor Jim Ardis defended the city’s position that it has done the appropriate due diligence on a project that is backed by nearly $40 million in public bonds.
If they really did “the appropriate due diligence,” it was all done in secret. No vetting was done in public, nor was there any public hearing before the city council decided to commit $40 million to the project.
He also defended the use of a tax bond for the project, saying that without public assistance, major Downtown projects would languish. He cited the “10 to 15 years” without development within the museum block as an example of the lack of the private industry moving forward with a project.
The City purchased the downtown Sears property in 1998 when Sears announced it would be moving to Northwoods Mall. Following that, they acquired the rest of the block. Ever since then, they’ve owned the whole block. They spent a few years haggling over what to do with it, then ultimately decided to give it to the museum. And that’s why there was a “lack of the private industry moving forward with a project.” They couldn’t. John Q. Hammons expressed interest in building a hotel on the block and the Mayor wouldn’t even return his calls. Furthermore, the museum group has had public assistance (lots of it!) for almost a full year and they still can’t get anything built down there.
“I would ask any . . . critics to name for me projects of this importance to the city that will have a private investor come before us and shoulder all of the burden,” Ardis said. “It doesn’t happen anymore.”
First of all, I take issue with his characterization of this project as one of “importance.” It’s not important to Peoria. All it will do is give us an overbuilt hotel to go along with our overbuilt Civic Center. Secondly, the reason a private investor won’t come before us and shoulder all of the burden is because they know it won’t be profitable. That’s why banks won’t loan the money, either. Why should we build an unprofitable hotel? Peoria has money to burn, apparently.
Ritschel and … Marx defended the hotel project as something that will make the Civic Center a more attractive destination for larger conventions and events.
Marx said at least 10 groups representing more than 17,000 room nights have approached the city about wanting to have an event at the Civic Center only if there was an attached hotel.
“They won’t event talk to us until we have this project come to fruition,” Marx said.
If it were that important to the Civic Center, then why didn’t they include a hotel in their $55 million expansion plan? Why did they say they could be successful without an attached hotel?
And what about those 17,000 room nights? Suppose they got $120 per room night for those (keep in mind that it will probably be less because they’ll give lower rates to big groups like that), how much would that amount to? $2,040,000. That’s not enough to make one bond payment. 17,000 room nights out of 178,850 annual room nights available (proposed 490 total rooms times 365 nights per year) accounts for 10.5% occupancy. Considering the current Pere Marquette (which has only 287 guest rooms) is barely getting 50% occupancy, I’d say we’re looking at some serious losses on this project.
But there’s no reason why Peoria residents should have to go to the IFA to complain about it. We should have had an opportunity to voice our concerns before our own local elected leaders. It’s too bad the IFA has provided more opportunity for input than our own City Council.
Flashback….Midtown Plaza!
This proposed project is sounding worse all the time. Do these potential conventioneers not know that there are several hotels within EASY walking distance of the Civic Center? Considering reports that business at downtown hotels is down and the old Jumor’s closed, I’m not sure how much actual “need” there is for more hotel space.
Nothing said is actually justifying why the City needs to be involved. $40 million is a lot of dough that could be used for things we actually need. I’ve written the City Council and asked them to walk away from this. I hope Peoria Chronicle readers to do the same.
CJ sez: “If it were that important to the Civic Center, then why didn’t they include a hotel in their $55 million expansion plan? Why did they say they could be successful without an attached hotel?”
Excellent question. I think I asked the very same thing on my blog a few months ago. They spent $55 million on an “upgrade” to the Civic Center and then it was deemed tha no hotel attached was needed. Why don’t they spend a few million and attach a sky walk to the Pere instead? At less than 50% occupancy, that should allow for the Pere to fill up, make a good profit, and re-invest in it’s self to upgrade and remodel rooms.
Group Think, systematic errors made by groups when taking collective decisions.
Irving Janis, 1971
Individual creativity, uniqueness, and independent thinking are lost in the pursuit of group cohesiveness, as are the advantages of reasonable balance in choice and thought that might normally be obtained by making decisions as a group
During groupthink, members of the group avoid promoting viewpoints outside the comfort zone of consensus thinking. A variety of motives for this may exist such as a desire to avoid being seen as foolish, or a desire to avoid embarrassing or angering other members of the group. Groupthink may cause groups to make hasty, irrational decisions, where individual doubts are set aside, for fear of upsetting the group’s balance.
Our council man said he was only one to vote against it, but when they finished the civic center expansion, the civic center said no one would come because of the attached hotel situation (the embassy just openned at the time and has a attached convention center). So our council man said we have to go through with it now. I guess he was saying we are on the hook. I would look for a rate war over conventions between the two city funded hotels, with the tax payers in peoria being on the hook (because ep funded the embassy with casino money). And there is no way that hotel is going to get $170 a night in rate. Most hotels cant break the $100 barrier. Embassy’s cat rate is $99 and they throw in free bfast and cocktail hour. A full service marriott charges extra for everything. Peoria and Champaign according to smith travel research are two worst travel markets in Illinois right now.
“If it were that important to the Civic Center, then why didn’t they include a hotel in their $55 million expansion plan? Why did they say they could be successful without an attached hotel?”
I remember 4 or 5 years ago sitting through a council meeting where a new hotel was being discussed/proposed and presented. I don’t remember if it was the Civic Center Authority or another developer that was doing the proposing.
However, I do remember watching a slide-show showing a hotel fronting Jefferson where the box office is now and taking up part of the parking lot. As I remember, discussion also took place using the parking lot next to the bus station as a “Plan B” and even some discussion about the parking lot across Monroe as a site for a hotel.
Because there was a slide show, I would say that this hotel was past the idea stage. Does anyone else recall this?
I remember that they also looked at the small grass area between the Civic Center and City Hall off of Jefferson. It would have been a small hotel (100 rooms +/-) primarily for convention staff and exhibitors. Can’t remember the reason that it did not go forward – I assume that the site did not contain enough room for the parking deck that the City would have felt that it needed to build :).
Get the frog into the pot of warm water. Cook the frog on low a little at a time. Cook the frog for the civic center and hotel expansion. Frog starts to jump out of the pot. Rewrite proposal and cook the frog with the civic center expansion only. Frog stays in pot. Frog still in pot, add the hotel expansion. Frog still cooking. Results to follow.