The Virginian-Pilot
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VIRGINIA BEACH
The City Council on Tuesday officially killed the controversial deal to build a four-star Hyatt hotel near the Virginia Beach Convention Center, an action that opens the door to other proposals.
While the public-private partnership was all but dead after losing political support earlier this year, the City Council's action was needed to end exclusive negotiations with Armada Hoffler, the development company that would have built the hotel.
As part of that deal, the city would have contributed nearly $67 million up front to build the $109 million hotel. Some of the money included loans the developer would have been expected to repaid.
City tourism officials say Virginia Beach is losing convention business to other areas because the city lacks a hotel next to its convention center.
Tuesday's decision means the City Council can begin considering other convention center hotel proposals, and at least one company has expressed interest in submitting one. Officials with Harmony Hospitality Inc. have said they soon will unveil a plan to renovate the existing DoubleTree by Hilton hotel they own near the convention center for use as the facility's official hotel. A Harmony spokesman said the company had no comment Tuesday night.
In a preliminary plan outlined last year, Harmony officials said they would spend about $25 million to expand and upgrade their hotel while seeking $5 million to $10 million in city funds for an enclosed walkway between the hotel and the convention center, plus other infrastructure improvements.
The Virginia Beach-based company owns 11 hotels in the region.
The City Council unanimously agreed to the resolution to terminate its agreement with Armada Hoffler. Council members did not comment on the decision.
Aaron Applegate, 757-222-5122,aaron.applegate@pilotonline.com
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Let's be a bit more careful
Let's be a bit more careful at making broad statements with accusations included herein about support of the DoubleTree. Frankly, it has not been business people coming forward with that recommendation, it has been members of the VBTA and others who used it as a straw man to defeat the proposal that won the competition, fair and square. Now of course, many have switched horses and oppose the DoubleTree proposal as well, but that is another issue. No business leader that I know of has come forward to support either another PPV or a specific proposal from the owners of the DoubleTree. At Vision, we have indicated strong support for the use of PPV's to develop a stronger industry, but only if the project is a good financial deal.
Be careful about making broad statements?
Oh here we go. So only business leaders should be able to decide what hotel deals are best and the taxpayer should just shut up and open his wallet. You guys at Virginia Beach Delusions are something else. The fact that we need a new convention center hotel is delusional in itself. Of course that is why VB Delusions exists in the first place I guess. Fact is if you were to leave the taxpayer out of this equation, pay for your own hotel with your own money and your own investors, then everyone would be a lot better off. Oh... there I go again. A moribund boo-bird making a broad statement again.
Doubletree?
So the cronie crowd are now pushing the Doubletree as an option. A 25 million dollar "facelift" will make it all better! By the way, I've noticed the building sign not working for the past few months, now all of a sudden they are working. Something is up!
This hotel is noted for it's crummy HVAC, bad elevators, poor customer service, the list goes on.
Unless they plan to level the building and start over, it's like giving a facelift to Joan Rivers. She sounds the same, but looks like the "Joker".
You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a red lipped pig! Please don't encourage a partnership with this 2 star Hotel!
The City Government of Virginia Beach is out of control
The job of any and all city or county is to provide public education, fire, ambulance, police, and other basic city services and recreation parks paid for by taxes. It is not in existence to function as a quasi-business organization to speculate in real estate, non-public property ownership, seeking "special-rights" from the State to use eminent domain to rob the citizenry of Virginia Beach of their homes and land for the benefit of its "pumphouse privateers". This particular government is in dire need of renovation and downsizing. The city budget is $48,000,000.00 overbudget and the city has lots of "open space" available for sale and positions to cut.
More lies from the Business Lobby . . .
Here's another WHOPPER! Good grief! The business lobby will write ANYTHING to TRY to prevent anyone from keeping their hands out of the citizen's wallets! Please read this latest example:
Despite the fact that tourism keeps our tax rates the lowest in the region, many, led by John Moss and the moribund VBTA, want to destroy the industry, and they consider the defeat of the convention hotel to be the first step.
The far from dead VBTA doesn't want to destroy tourism in our city. That is an outright lie.
The VBTA opposing a really BAD DEAL that stuck taxpayers with the majority of the costs for a fancy private hotel is simply intelligent taxpayers letting our elected representatives understand how we object. No "1st step" at all.
Greenmun denies the true
Greenmun denies the true objective of the VBTA; that is, to cripple the visitor and tourism industry by starving it of resources. Despite his family's personal use of the V.B. Convention Center for a national cheerleading event, he continues to criticize the City for investing in facilities. Despite the documented need for a convention hotel, he and his sychophants in the VBTA continued to misrepresent the deal to their members while knowing full well the facility would be paid for by visitors and by the private sector. Greenmun has gone on record countless times on these forums to condemn the tourism industry as providing only low wage jobs, ignoring the fact that every occupation has value, and supports our city and its tax base.
Mike's right!
The low wage tourist jobs only go to illegals and imported Russian school students, who are forced to live ten to a bed in some bug ridden apartment. The high wage jobs are for the locals who sip martinis at the area country clubs.
Please, stop you arrogant
Please, stop you arrogant and blatant criticism of the VBTA's favorite columnist, a woman who writes as if she is on the staff of the organization. If she wishes to sip martini's at the Princess Anne, that is her business, not yours. I will defend her right to a dry martini anytime.
deserves repeating!
Submitted by Reid_Greenmun on Tue, 02/14/2012 at 10:51 pm. This "deal" is dead, but another is already in the works. At a time our city is facing challenging budget short falls and declines in revenue due to a horrible economy, we do not need to be SPENDING millions of precious tax dollars on privately owned hotels.
Please keep your powder dry and pay close attention for the next "deal" to be thrown on the agenda for a fast track vote.
The real disconnect is that
The real disconnect is that in Virginia Beach, Tourism is a big business, almost 12% of the region's work force is involved in that industry, and at the Beach, the business generates some $1.1 billion dollars in revenue, yet this business is treated like a red haired step child by a vocal minority. Despite the fact that tourism keeps our tax rates the lowest in the region, many, led by John Moss and the moribund VBTA, want to destroy the industry, and they consider the defeat of the convention hotel to be the first step. It may well be, unless the intelligent citizens who understand the value of this industry get off their duffs and express their support for initiatives that will keep the golden goose alive so we pay low tax rates.