Quote Originally Posted by Spartan View Post
The pay to play with the top brands is certainly a lot higher than $25M resembling just land assembly, parking, and an attendance guaranty. How this goes down is that the city will issue an RFP and each bid will list the subsidy requested by each hotel operator. This format, which is the national standard for CC hotel development, puts the hotel in the driver's seat during negotiations.

As for $40 nights I'm not saying that it will happen every night there isn't a coinciding convention booking but it will occur a handful of nights a year and the taxpayers will be paying the operator, under such a model that you suggested, for rooms not booked as well as bookings when occupancy dips below a certain level (maybe 70% who knows). You're certainly right that the strong downtown hotel market is one detail Sanders neglected to consider here.

I'm not basing my cautionary argument on this examples I'm just extrapolating what we're really talking about here just so that you all have some details to go off of. The only complaint I have is that this process steers clear of real details until it's an up or down vote on making a deal.
If there is an RFP, to whom would the proposals go? The City? Since it would not be a MAPS funding source, it would not go to the CC committee. I doubt a decision like that could be a quick thumbs up or thumbs down on the shoe, though. So, if people are paying attention, and they are, citizens can have some input.

Unless a CC hotel created a glut, and I guess we could partially gauge that by downtown hoteliers' response to the discussion I can guarantee there would not be $40 nights available often. Since I have four kids and a 2 bedroom townhouse, every time I have more than one home I put them up in a downtown hotel. The best rate I've ever gotten was Christmas 3 years ago at the Skirvin for $120. Usually, the hotels downtown are $150+. And as I've said, most of those $40 rooms are likely the last one or two rooms at the last minute.