Tag Archives: Wonderful Development

City of Peoria, Peoria Area CVB, Peoria Civic Center

Civic Center loses wrestling tournament to Springfield

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The Illinois Kids Wrestling Federation’s annual Jon Davis IKWF Kids Open will be moving to Springfield for 2011 and 2012. The Peoria Civic Center has hosted the event for more than a decade. The contest is held every January and has brought in anywhere from 1,300 to 2,100 wrestlers annually. It was held at Redbird Arena until 1995 when the group left to protest ISU’s decision to drop wrestling as a varsity sport.

In e-mails forwarded to The Peoria Chronicle by a source who wishes to remain anonymous, Sports Sales Manager Chad Mentzer of the Peoria Area Convention and Visitors Bureau wrote, “After talking with Mike Urwin with IKWF, there are two reasons why we lost this piece of business…. #1 Hotels. Average cost [in Springfield] is approximately $20 cheaper per night. #2 Facility rental fees. Projected fees in Springfield are, based upon expenses from 2009, considerably less than the Peoria Civic Center.” The group sought a block of 400 room nights for the one-day event.

Joel Green, Director of Sales and Marketing at the Hotel Pere Marquette responded to Mentzer’s e-mail by saying that his hotel had “lowered our rates considerably for 2011… after holding our rates for 2009 and 2010.” January rates are historically low to begin with in the Peoria hospitality industry. Regarding the venue, Debbie Ritschel, General Manager of the Peoria Civic Center, added, “In this particular case the fact that they [Springfield] will not have to cover ice in their arena may have also been a factor.”

In April, Holiday Inn City Centre General Manager Sami Qureshi stated that the top reason conventions skip Peoria is due to the Civic Center’s rate structure. This recent convention loss and the reasons cited by the IKWF appear to support that contention.

The loss of this event also highlights the competitive nature of hotel room pricing. If the Pere Marquette lowered its room rates below 2009 levels and Springfield was still able to offer rates $20 per night lower, one wonders how a four- or five-star Marriott hotel will be able to offer competitive rates that are high enough to pay off the debt service on a $37 million bond taken out by the City of Peoria.

City of Peoria, General News, Peoria Area CVB, Peoria Civic Center

Civic Center rates the No. 1 reason conventions skip Peoria

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Why do organizations skip Peoria and choose other cities to host their conventions?

The reasons were revealed by Sami Qureshi on WTVP’s public affairs program “At Issue” Thursday night. He should know. He’s the Holiday Inn City Centre’s General Manager, President of the Heart of Illinois Hospitality Association, and Secretary/Treasurer of the Peoria Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. He’s talked to convention organizers and read the PACVB’s lost business surveys.

Based on those primary sources, Qureshi says the number one reason Peoria is bypassed is because of the Peoria Civic Center’s rate structure. The number two reason is limited air service. The main reason is not, he says, due to a lack of quality hotel rooms.

Gary Matthews, the hotel developer who hopes to turn the Pere Marquette into a Marriott and connect it to the Civic Center with the help of $37 million in municipal (i.e., taxpayer-backed) bonds, disagreed with Qureshi. Matthews said that Marriott officials told him the Peoria Civic Center’s rates are perfectly fine. Qureshi countered that he wasn’t stating his opinion, but is just repeating what actual organizers who actually said “no” to Peoria had told him.

Qureshi and Matthews were on “At Issue” along with Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis and Holiday Inn City Centre owner Bruce Kinseth to talk about the “Wonderful Development” and its ramifications. There was also a prerecorded clip of Mark Twain Hotel owner and former Peoria mayor Lowell “Bud” Grieves explaining his alternative proposal. The episode will be replayed Sunday at 4:30 p.m. on WTVP, channel 47.

City of Peoria

“Wonderful Development” Update

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The “Wonderful Development” (that’s what City Attorney Randy Ray called proposed downtown Marriott project when the City was still keeping it a closely-guarded secret) has yet to meet any of the deadlines in its redevelopment agreement with the City. The most recent Issues Update gives the details:

REDEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF PEORIA AND EM PROPERTIES, LTD. This Redevelopment Agreement was approved by the Council on December 15, 2008. This Agreement provides that the Redeveloper shall commence construction of the Project not later than one year from the execution of the Agreement (December 19, 2009). Alternatively, the Redeveloper is to commence within 20 days of closing the initial series of the Bond, and the Bond issue has not occurred and the pre-conditions to the Bond issue have not yet been met. There is another deadline contained in Paragraph 3.5 of the Redevelopment Agreement which provides that the Redeveloper shall submit construction plans to the City no later than June 1, 2009. That has not occurred. Although this deadline has not been met, the Contract remains in full force and effect.

Going back to Paragraph 3.2.1 concerning commencement of the Agreement, the Agreement provides that if the Redeveloper does not commence construction of the Project within 18 months from the date of the execution (June 19, 2010), the City shall have the right to terminate the Agreement.

According to a recent Journal Star article, the Redeveloper is “optimistic” that he will be able to get all the financing he needs to acquire the Pere Marquette and adjacent properties by January 1, 2010, or thirteen days after the deadline for construction to commence. That would leave him five months to submit construction plans to the City (already four months past deadline itself), secure approval, and start construction — or else the City could terminate the agreement.

I don’t think he’s going to make it. But then, I don’t think it’s going to matter, either, because the City never cancels redevelopment agreements that miss deadlines. In fact, I don’t know why they even bother to put deadlines into their agreements anymore when they’re demonstrably meaningless.

This Wonderful Development — to the tune of approximately $4 million in debt service per year on average — will continue to sail through, even as we cut police officers (to save $1 million annually), road resurfacing, animal control, and other vital public services. Your streets will take a little longer to get plowed in the winter, but we’ll have a downtown Marriott. The police will take a little longer to respond to your emergency, but we’ll have a downtown Marriott. That rabid dog in your neighborhood threatening your family’s safety on a Saturday? Call back Monday; the office is closed weekends due to budget cuts — but we’ll have a downtown Marriott.

As taxes continue to rise and service continues to decline, more people will give up and move out of Peoria. But that’s okay, because when those folks come back to visit, they’ll have a place to stay: the downtown . . . Embassy Suites in East Peoria.