- Developer Wins $138M in Incentives To Build 1,000-Room Downtown Marriott Marquis Hotel [Houston Chronicle]
- Council Approves Pilot Washington Ave ‘Parking Benefit District’ with Meters for 350 Spaces, Expanded Residential Permits [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston Light Rail Efforts, Grand Parkway Make Sierra Club’s List of Best, Worst Transportation Projects Nationwide [The Highwayman]
- Noise Mitigation a Concern in US-290 Expansion, Say Jersey Village Residents [Cypress Creek Mirror]
- Slideshow: A Tour of the Light Rail Expansion’s Progress [Hair Balls]
- Privately Owned RV Park Approved for Seawolf Park [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Shocking: Security Camera Catches Copper Thief’s Big Jolt During Robbery Attempt at Village of Harvest Bend Church [abc13]
- Tony Vallone Consulting on Vallone’s, a Steakhouse Opening in Gateway Memorial City Next Fall [Houston Business Journal]
- Texas Expecting Continued Big Growth in Restaurant Sales Next Year [Houston Business Journal]
Photo of Midtown Spec’s: Candace Garcia via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Is one hotel really going to deliver a return of $138 mil by getting the city a few big conventions? Downtown does fill up quickly when a big event is in town. But, at all other times, there is more than enough hotel space. This seems to be creeping up on the kind of “build it and they will come” speculation that lead to the Bayport Cruise Terminal debacle. Aside from an occasional big event (marathon, big convention, championship sports event), there just isn’t the need for another 1000 hotel beds downtown.
And if there were a need for 1000 more hotel beds downtown, you wouldn’t need $138 million in incentives to get somebody to build them.
Hotel Occupancy Tax is 6 percent the cost of the room. At $100/night it will take 23 million bookings to make up the 123 million dollars. Less for higher priced nights obviously.
Now keep in mind that 79 million dollars are tax rebates. So from the taxpayer standpoint-its not an expenditure. Now 58.7 million dollars is being spent by our tax dollars. At $100/Night it will take 9.78 million bookings at the hotel to make that back. This is strictly assuming hotel occupancy tax alone but it will take 26 years for the government in the most ideal situation possible (100% occupancy for 26 years straight-lol) to make their money back on this.
Anyway, I dont know how to accurately calculate economic affects and tax revenues from other businesses in the area. But I thought I’d inject a little bit of numbers into it.
Blah, blah. You haters will whine about your taxes being spent on anything. You can’t make everyone happy. I think this is a good project for downtown and it’s great the city is investing in our central core more aggressively.
I think metering parking along Washington and restricting street parking on side streets to residents will end up hurting the businesses along the avenue. If the city were to spend some of the millions they are willing to pony up for a developer to build another hotel downtown on acquiring land and construct 2 multistory garages, it would benefit the area. The city could then use the parking revenue to pay back the construction costs.
I feel for the residents of the West End and Rice Military, but at the end of the day, city streets belong to all the citizens. Houston always wants an “urban experience”, but it seems that whenever a “scene” happens organically, like downtown, or midtown, or Washington Ave., the City or Metro steps in to put the brakes on it.
@eddie I’m not hating on the project. Or the use of tax dollars to encourage its development. I actually support this venture and hope it gets constructed!
no tax money to prop up downtown, let the real estate market dictate what and where to build.