News and notes from around the interweb:
- Hotel will give you 18 years of free stays if you make a baby at their property on Valentine’s Day.
- What’s behind the ‘atrium’ hotel and why it’s important to save historic hotels
- Crony capitalism, Grand Hyatt Memphis-style.
Developer Chance Carlisle is seeking a 30-year tax break and a 5% tourism surcharge to develop the fourth phase of his One Beale project, the 350-room, $191 million Grand Hyatt hotel. Carlisle is also seeking a 2.5% local sales tax abatement.
The Downtown Memphis Commission’s City Center Revenue Finance Corporation cannot, by state statute, approve a PILOT longer than 20 years, so Carlisle will have to request approval from the state for the extra decade. If approved, the developer would essentially receive a 75% tax abatement, which would amount to about $65,105,076 over the three-decade period.
- Why Long-Haul Low-Cost Airlines Always Go Bankrupt
- There’s nothing wrong with the trip the Mayor of my hometown took – good precautions were taken. However telling the people of Austin not to travel from his timeshare in Cabo is truly next-level.
- Dave Chappelle filmed in mask altercation at Austin hotel
Politicians can suck my weiner
I honestly believe that both Republicans and Dems are the same. They are only out for themselves and their own self interest. They create discord between each side to give the appearance of a difference.
@Paulz — all politicians are just out to make a name for themselves.
Great article on the atrium hotel. I still like them, although the noise from the atrium social spaces can be a problem. The article doesn’t mention John Q. Hammons, who built a sizable array of atrium hotels in the 1980s and 1990s. Most opened as Holiday Inns but have subsequently been converted, with Holiday Inn’s decline, to Hiltons, Marriotts, Sheratons, etc. There are also a lot that opened as and remain Embassy Suites. Unfortunately the problems with the Hammons hotel empire in the last decade meant many of those hotels fell into desperate need of renovation (with the multi-story fountains being walled-off, the plants removed, etc.), but the companies that have subsequently taken over have renovated some. They are all pretty recognizable once you’re in them: the Marriott pyramid in Albuquerque; the Embassy Suites Kansas City Airport; the Hilton Fort Collins, the Holiday Inn Bowling Green, etc.
The atrium article is excellent. Informative insightful and very well written. I highly recommend it.
I remember staying in a few Holiday Inns and Howard Johnson’s as a kid during our frequent road trips across the US. Remember eating at Sambos, Bobs Big Boy, VIPS and Denny’s.