Just hours before the Metro Council OK’d yet another tax increment financing district for a new hotel downtown—this time for a Holiday Inn Express at in the old Savings and Loan Building at 400 North Blvd.—Daily Report broke news Wednesday that developer Mike Wampold has finalized a franchise agreement with Marriott to revitalize the old LNB Building downtown into a new 148-room Autograph hotel called Watermark Baton Rouge.
“This is going to be more upscale than the Renaissance,” says Wampold, referring to another Marriott hotel he owns on Bluebonnet Boulevard that opened in 2011. “This is going to be the most upscale hotel in Baton Rouge.”
But shortly after Wampold’s agreement was made public, a dispute over the hotel’s name emerged. That’s because a reception and banquet hall is getting ready to open under the name Watermark on Third, just up the street from the planned hotel on the newly redeveloped second floor of the former Latil’s Stationery building.
Someone’s going to have to change their name, and Wampold says it is going to have to be the reception facility, which is owned by restaurateurs Andy Blouin and Sean Malone.
“They’re going to have to quit using it,” Wampold says. “We had this well in the works before I ever heard of Watermark on Third.”
Blouin—whose 6,500-square-foot, upscale reception hall will open in the next few weeks—says his attorney is looking into the matter.
“We currently have a state registered trademark name and logo,” he says, declining further comment.
Also this week, a new report from national public accounting firm Carr, Riggs and Ingram was released by those behind the effort to incorporate the city of St. George showing the proposed municipality would operate with an annual budget surplus of $11.4 million.
The finding is in stark contrast to a St. George budget analysis commissioned by the Baton Rouge Area Chamber and conducted by Faulk & Winkler that was released in December. That analysis showed a new St. George government, if formed, would have to increase property taxes by at least 20.5 mills to help cover an annual operating deficit of $12.6 million.
“Our conservative view of revenues available and expenses required to operate the city clearly indicate a tax increase is not necessary,” says CRI Partner C. Donald Wheat.
Read the complete Daily Report Week in Review for a rundown of some of the other top stories making headlines this week.
