The Baton Rouge Hospitality Management Association, a group of hotel owners, is coming out against a bill to use tax increment financing to cover the cost of renovating a partially completed building on Bluebonnet Boulevard and turning it into a hotel. The hospitality group, which says it represents more than half of the hotel rooms in the Capital Region, says it is against the TIF for several reasons, saying it would give an unwarranted private subsidy, wouldn’t create as many jobs as advertised and add to supply of hotel rooms at a time when the industry is expected to take a hit because of the recession.
Developer Mike Wampold wants to use state hotel-motel tax revenue to back bonds to pay for renovation of the Jimmy Swaggart Ministries dormitory into a conference hotel. The hospitality group scoffed at descriptions of the dorm as an “eyesore” and blight, noting that Bluebonnet and the nearby Perkins Rowe development don’t meet that description. Senate President Pro Tem Sharon Weston Broome, D-Baton Rouge, and State Rep. Steve Carter, R-Baton Rouge, both back the TIF bill, and Mayor Kip Holden supports it.
Business Report Executive Editor JR Ball has written a column arguing against the TIF, saying it would amount to a giveaway of hotel and sales tax revenues. “Whether Baton Rouge needs another hotel or convention space is debatable — and something the free market should decide,” Ball says. “What’s certain is there’s zero justification for pumping public money into a commercial project along the highly desirable Bluebonnet corridor.” Read his column here. Send comments to editors@businessreport.com.
