Attorneys for two separate downtown hotel projects will ask the Metro Council to defer items on Wednesday’s agenda that would allow the hotels to receive a rebated portion of city-parish sales taxes.
Both projects—the Holiday Inn Express, which is being redeveloped in the old Savings and Loan Building at St. Ferdinand Street and North Boulevard, and Mike Wampold’s planned hotel in the Old LNB Building on North Third Street—are part of tax increment financing districts previously created by the state Legislature. However, both projects need the city-parish to also sign off on the terms of the TIFs, which divert a portion of state and city sales taxes generated by the hotels back to the developers.
Assistant Parish Attorney Bob Abbott says attorneys for both projects are not ready to move forward yet at the city level.
“We just received a draft of the agreement on the LNB project and we haven’t even received the paperwork on the Holiday Inn Express,” Abbott says.
Attorneys for the Old LNB Building hotel project are expected to meet with city officials this week to discuss the terms of their agreement, and Abbott says everything could be worked out in time for the measure to be placed on the agenda for the Dec. 10 Metro Council meeting.
Things are more complicated with the Holiday Inn Express project. That’s because the Holiday Inn Express TIF district also includes the Hotel Indigo, which opened in 2011 at the corner of Convention and North Third streets.
“The state statute was created to include both hotels,” Abbott says. “But they’re two separate hotels, two different developers, so we need to go back and revise our resolution.”
Abbott says the Holiday Inn Express will likely not be resolved until early next year. He says he doesn’t anticipate any problems from the city’s end with either project. The city-parish has been supportive of efforts to develop more downtown hotels in hopes of generating more convention and meeting business at the River Center. The Metro Council convenes at 4 p.m. on Wednesday on the third floor of City Hall, 222 St. Louis St. See the full agenda. —Stephanie Riegel
