The Metro Council adjourned early on Wednesday, just 40 minutes after calling the meeting to order, because too few members were present to make up a quorum. As a result, several items up for approval were deferred until July 22, which is the next time the council meets. Other measures were not even introduced, which means the council will not be able to take them up for discussion until its August meeting.
One of the agenda items affected by the early adjournment was the proposed creation of a special taxing district to help finance construction of a new downtown Courtyard Marriott. Developer Bo Aughtry of South Carolina-based Windsor Aughtry has said the project cannot proceed without the creation of a tax increment financing district, which would remit 2% of the city-parish sales tax in the district for 20 years back to the developers.
Windsor Aughtry has not yet acquired the surface parking lot at Third and Florida streets on which the hotel will be built. The property has been under contract since last year, and the sale was supposed to close in July. Now that the TIF is delayed it is unclear how that time frame will be affected. Officials with Windsor Aughtry have not returned numerous phone calls for comment. When the hotel was first announced last October, developers said they hoped to begin construction in May.
Another item of city-parish that will be delayed is the appropriation of $1 million in traffic impact fees that will help fund the environmental and planning phase of the proposed Nicholson corridor streetcar. The city-parish received a $1.76 million federal TIGER grant earlier this year to begin planning for the streetcar along three miles of Nicholson Drive between the LSU campus and downtown, and it is required to put up $1 million in matching funds.
The measure was set to be introduced last night and voted on in July. Now, it appears that timeframe will be delayed by a month—unless the council calls an emergency meeting to address last night’s unfinished business.
Chief Administrative Officer William Daniel says the council’s inaction will delay the process but should not derail it altogether.
“It’s not optimum,” he says. “But it is what it is.”
—Stephanie Riegel
