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Originally Posted by Utaaah!
Pleasant Grove apparently wants to heavily subsidize this hotel/convention center development with city, county, and school funds. I'm generally opposed to using public subsidies for private development -- especially on raw, undeveloped ground. This project may bring outside dollars from out-of-state convention go-ers, but I'm skeptical that enough patrons will pay $284/night to fill the facility on a consistent basis. The convenient flat subsidies from restaurant and auto rental taxes will backfire if the project fails, forcing the county to contribute funds for many years without a corresponding increase in revenue. Also, while the restaurants around the facility may feed hotel/convention center patrons, they will largely draw business from existing restaurants. This is bad, bad policy IMHO. Read on....."
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I agree.
I dont like using tax incentives to build retail developments. (ie Wal-Mart, Home Depot, etc.) They will stay for 10 years, then move to the next town who will give them 10 more years of tax incentives. Not generally done with a hotel and convention center.
Here is are the good and bad points of this plan as I see it.
First, the tax money they are looking at using will be mostly generated by the project. If the hotel/convention center is not built there is no money.
Second, PG is only asking for a third of the transient room tax. The county still keeps the other two-thirds, and the restaurant portion of the sales tax which the $85,000 is an estimate of the restaurant tax for the additional restaurants not all the sales tax revenue.
Third, I usually oppose these types of projects because the school districts pay more than other government agencies, but if Alpine School District has negotiated an arrangement they see some benefit in them I will defer to them.
Fourth, Car Rental Tax--what convention visitor is going to rent a car in Utah Valley? I usually get one at the airport (ie SLC gets the revenue) when I travel. This one I don't like.
Fifth, don't like to see the county give up all of their share of the property tax from this development.
Sixth, $284 a night? This isn't New York. Maybe this is the posted rate no one really pays. It had better be one "oh my heck" of a hotel to charge more than NYC hotels.
Part of me says Hammonds must have research demand before committing to build this size of facility, but I still wonder:
Is there enough demand for this kind of facility? If so, where are these types of convention going now?
Are we talking big conventions/meetings of over 1000 people?
I do know that Utah Valley has limited meeting space for large groups. You have BYU, UVSC, Thanksgiving Point or the Marriott Hotel.
I do know that demand for meeting space is tough to find in SLC, and more available and cheaper at the Provo Marriott. I've heard they plan on going after the SLC meeting business--different from convention business. Meetings are generally local people, and conventioners travel from outside the area and need rooms to stay in.