Downtown Convention Hotel: Not Now, Not With Our Money
![]() By Mark Forsythe The Kansas City Post Build it and they will come. Makes for a catchy baseball movie theme but lousy economic development policy. The Sprint Center sits as a shining example of how not to go about public-private partnered development. Not only has the Sprint Center not attracted a premium tenant, it has essentially killed the Kemper Arena in the process. It's called "market dilution" and this market can only support one arena. Then there's the Power & Light District. It's not even necessary to describe the failure that has been. How is it that with such monumental failures visible from their office windows, that the City Council can be considering using public dollars to help finance a 1000 room hotel? Yes, yes, I know. It's the "increment" in TIF and it's the increment of the appraised property tax abatement in a 353 plan, etc, etc... What it is, is more downtown real estate that will never grace the tax rolls because by the time a standard 20 year abatement ends, the property will be in need of renovation, and you guessed it, even more public funding. Fortunately, not even some embarrassing cheerleading in the Kansas City Star can spur this City Council into action. The Council's love of useless committees is just too strong, and its desire to blow an additional half a million dollars on consultants too much. As someone who has in the past been a strong advocate for downtown development, this is difficult to write, but Kansas City taxpayers cannot afford to get into the convention hotel business. The Star's cheer leading aside, it just doesn't make good financial sense. If it does, then I want someone to show me. Show me exactly which conventions Kansas City is losing due to lack of hotel space. Name them. Show us letters of intent guaranteeing a multi-year commitment from tangible groups if we build this hotel. Show me you can fill the hotel rooms we already have. Conventions come in all shapes and sizes. Fill downtown 52 weeks a year with groups that bump up against our current capacity. This talk about the arbitrary 1000 room threshold that convention planners look for is just that; arbitrary. Show me you can overwhelm our downtown transit capacity. Fill the buses and the new shuttles (no I won't call them trolleys) and occupy all the taxi cabs. Populate the sidewalks with lanyard wearing conventioneers searching for bars and restaurants. Show me the numbers! A savvy investor always buys into a rally and sells out of a decline. Show me the increasing revenues from a growing convention trade and convince me I'm buying into a growth industry. Because the reality is what we're really doing is assuming a larger equity stake in a shrinking market. The convention business is dialing back, and not just because of the economy. Show me the money! If a new convention hotel is such a good investment, convince the private sector. For that matter, the private sector should not need "convincing" at all. If the numbers work, private investment will come. If private investors are putting their funds elsewhere, why should we as taxpayers do the exact opposite? Does the city council know something the entire private equity market does not? Answer: That's a big "no". This is the committee forming, consultant hiring, resolution making bunch, remember? A 1000 room hotel is not going to bring high-paying jobs and consequently is not going to generate its fair share of e-tax. A 1000 room hotel is not going to draw conventions, what group thinks about the hotel when they're choosing a site for their gathering? A 1000 room hotel is not going to make up the shortfall of the Power & Light District bonds. So what is it going to do? Add a few bucks to some council re-election campaigns and plunge the city even further into debt. I say "no thanks". |











