The City of Phoenix spent about $600 million to expand their convention center. Hoteliers didn’t buy the ‘if you build it they will come logic’ and wouldn’t invest in more rooms So the city decided to do that themselves. They spent $350 million more and got.. a Sheraton.
Credit: Sheraton
Phoenix still owes $300 million on the property a dozen years later. It plans to sell for $255 million. But to get that they have to offer a 20 year property tax abatement worth $100 million.
Granted the Sheraton Grand is surprising nice for a Sheraton but then again with the way Phoenix poured gasoline on taxpayer money to get it it darned well should be.
The old Sheraton slogan, “belong,” makes a lot of sense here. Phoenix residents do belong here, they paid for it.
(HT: Alan H.)
What a complete waste of tax payer money. What do you expect from a state that voted for Trump.
@mark
Yeah, we should let illegals live in the hotel and give them free health care too. That will show them fools in Arizona.
30 states voted for Trump. The election is done Trump is president. Get on with your life Mark.
@Rjb
Exactly.
Now that he’s been pardoned, Sheriff Joe Arpaio will be able to manage the hotel as a concentration camp.
Dallas spent $500 million for an Omni Hotel.
I though you, in the US, knew how to avoid such tax payers’ expenses.
Are you Europeanising yourselves ? :-))
Isn’t Arizona the same place that sold it’s own state capitol building? Oh well. Heck for $350 million they could have gotten like 70 transatlantic subsidised nonstop Delta routes to Europe.
I would have spent the money moving the PHX rental car center over to the terminal building so I would never have to take that “8 minute” ride on those buses ever again.
That’s what happens when you have a Democrat for mayor since 2004. Tax the people and waste their money.
Mark, get over it and write something appropriate or don’t. Sick of the leftist remarks throughout the spectrum today.
The problem is not limited to Phoenix it happens everywhere the best we can to do is try to limit the amounts of waste. Sadly I happened to have worked on this project ( minor structural repairs)
@DaninMCI oh don’t worry, they’re spending 700 million to extend the sky train to the rental car center. It’s scheduled to be done in 3 years.
To the other comments, states don’t vote for a president, people do, and it’s not a binary decision by state.
Portland subsidized $70 million for a convention center adjacent Hyatt Regency getting built. Beat the rush and book your conventions now.
“swag says:
September 8, 2017 at 8:51 pm
Dallas spent $500 million for an Omni Hotel.”
Good point. And major contributors to the subsidy are the Omni’s own competitors.
https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2014/11/how-government-subsidies-are-hiding-the-omni-convention-center-hotels-losses/
https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2015/08/the-convention-center-that-ate-dallas/
All approved in a referendum.
You were not accounting for the hundreds of millions of dollars of tax revenue from conventions and events like Super Bowl and the NCAA final four, which would not have happened without the convention center nor the Sheraton. All this has allowed for further development of downtown Phoenix and people moving back downtown, which will only serve to further attract events like these. And, by the way, the story also fails to mention that the city wants to sell the hotel so that they can use some of the funds and taxes that were used to build it and direct them towards a new stadium. These things happen in many cities around the country. Take a good luck. . The story is very incomplete as all sensationalist media news stories are.
Tom: They told us this would happen in Dallas too. It didn’t. They also want to sell it to get out of their tied-up capital. They can’t.
” These things happen in many cities around the country. Take a good luck (sic).”
Read the two links I left, above, for more details and before replying.