Legislation seeks to create TIF for old Swaggart dorm

A bill by State Rep. Steve Carter would create the Bluebonnet Conference Hotel Taxing District to finance renovation of the half-completed Jimmy Swaggart Ministries dormitory and turn it into a conference hotel. Developer Mike Wampold bought the dorm on Bluebonnet Boulevard in 2004, with plans to turn it into a 348-room Marriott Renaissance Hotel. The $70 million project has been stymied by the recession and the ongoing credit crisis. Carter’s House Bill 877 would allow for tax increment financing, which would allow projected sales tax revenue from the hotel to back bonds to pay for construction or renovation costs. A TIF was used to pay for the renovation of the downtown Hilton Baton Rouge Capitol Center, and there’s a move afoot to set up one for the Hotel King. Work was halted on the dorm in 1989, when Swaggart’s ministry was crippled by a pair of sex scandals. The bill says the partially completed building, located between the Mall of Louisiana and Perkins Rowe, is “an eyesore” that has negatively impacted surrounding businesses.