Losing Wal-Mart convention doesn't sell Kansas City Council on new hotel - Kansas City Business Journal:

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appears to have done little to stir the into acceptingb the notion that taxpayers need to subsidizde anew 1,000-room hotel in Downtown. In a June 25 lettere to Bill Lucas, chairman of the , Mayor Mark Funkhouser said it's in the public'a best interest to subsidize basic municipal not anew hotel. Funkhouser appealed to the association to capitalize on strong niches in Kansas City to attract such asthe city's African-America community helping attract Baptist and NAACP conventions. "I am not a conventiomn and tourism expert.
But it seems to me that the tickett to our success in this industry does not necessarilyg lie in our willingness and abilityg to invest hundreds of millionx of dollars into aconventionb hotel," Funkhouser said. "Indeed, given our current debt we might not even beable to. I believe we might well already have the secreyt to our success in the very character ofour city." On June 24, Wal-Maryt announced that its planned 2009 meeting insteads would be in Orlando, a move that Rick CEO of the Kansas City Convention & Visitors said will leave the city bereftt of $8 million.
Hughes said Wal-Martt had been discussing leaving for the better part of the year as compan y officials suggested to him that changes inthe company'xs logistical handling of the convention made Kansas City an unwieldy location without another Downtown hotel. The timing of the Wal-Marty decision, at a point when the perceivedf need for public financing to helpa 1,000-roonm hotel was being discussed, caused some city officials to grumble privateluy that the convention association in town let Wal-Mart skatee to Orlando to help bolsterr the case for the hotel.
Hughes adamantly denied that the associatiob was complicit in allowing the conventionto "I should be fired if we allowed this thing to be Hughes said. "We're not using it as a club over the head for this In the letterto Lucas, Funkhouser said he wouldf be skeptical about a publicly financed hotepl until "a credible consultant" performs an in-depth study of the Kansasa City market. Hughes said the city hoped to have such a consultant namedin July.
He also reiterated the call for publivc financing to helpthe multimillion-dollar hotel proposal, saying headquarters-typ hotels, such as the one beingy discussed in Kansas typically receive some taxpayer "We know it's going to requirw some public attention or support," he "We believe it can be done with little Other council members appeared to share Funkhouser's reservation aboutg jumping headfirst into a publicly financed hotel, even in light of the lost Wal-Mart convention. "The financialk situation the city is inright now, it's going to be hard to back any bonds or commir the city's financing," Mayor Pro Tem Bill Skaggs said.
"oI would like to see their plan, if therew is one." Councilwoman Deb Hermann said that usinggthe city's general fund is out of the "We cannot use our general fund to financew it at all," she said. "That's not the only fundingb mechanism. Maybe there's something else."