Convention Center Developers seeking subsidies (Pittsburgh, Hampton: 2015, condos, hotels)

[Rocket88]

I don't quite understand why they need subsidies when there are so many other hotels being built in the city without subsidies when they are given a built-in market adjacent to a convention center. Is it the size of the project? The Good news is the amount they are asking for is not as drastic as a few years ago when there was bidding.Developers bidding for David L. Lawrence Convention Center hotel seeking subsidies | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

[JoeP]

The cost and risk for a large convention center hotel are much bigger than the smaller cookie cutter standard hotels.

[Geeo]

I think it's an age-old tradition, since cities around the country have been snookered into providing subsidies to developers to build convention hotels. Not sure why, since all other hotels are built the old-fashioned way, by the developers putting up their own money and borrowing for construction. Maybe they ask for some help with sidewalks or other infrastructure, but that's about it.

Then we have the local convention & visitors' bureau, who cried years ago when the old convention center opened in 1981 that they needed a "host hotel" adjacent. So the then Vista International Hotel was built, which is the one that is there now. It was big enough to take care of all the convention business. Then Columbus, Cleveland, and all our peer cities built bigger subsidized hotels, so the local folks cried that the bigger conventions were passing Pittsburgh by for the fancy bigger hotels and now we need an even bigger hotel for the even bigger subsidized convention center. It's kind of like a hamster wheel you can never get off of.

[_Buster]

Originally Posted by JoeP

The cost and risk for a large convention center hotel are much bigger than the smaller cookie cutter standard hotels.

but...
"Another potential complication is that the developers so far are proposing “way less” than the 500 or more rooms the SEA has been looking for in a headquarters hotel, Mr. Fontana said."

[Rocket88]

Rafael Vinoly is the architect who designed the convention center. He came to visit several years ago and wanted to know where the new hotel was. His design was based on there being a hotel atop.

[Rocket88]

Originally Posted by _Buster

but...
"Another potential complication is that the developers so far are proposing “way less” than the 500 or more rooms the SEA has been looking for in a headquarters hotel, Mr. Fontana said."

Rich Fitzgerald also said it would be comparable to 3 PNC, which has a 185 room Fairmont, condos, and offices at 23 stories. If this project is multi use, and with the demand for office space, residential units and hotel rooms as high as it is, I don't see why subsidies are necessary. Now if they want to do 500 rooms plus condos plus offices and retail, I would have no problem with subsidies for a massive multi use project that would have to be close to a 40 story tower.

[Geeo]

But isn't the convention & visitors' bureau insisting that it has to be a 500-room hotel? They always said that they need 1,000 rooms adjacent to the convention center to pull in the really big conventions because convention planners don't want to billet people in multiple hotels. The Westin is something like 600 rooms.

[Rocket88]

When I worked at the William Penn a lot of conventioneers were sometimes surprised if not up upset that they had to walk a few blocks to the convention center. It was not so much that it was a far walk. It was just not normal for them because they were used to being next to or connected to the convention center in other cities.

[I_Like_Spam]

Downtown Pittsburgh has had a massive increase in the number of hotel rooms in town over the past 15 or so years already- the Fairmont, Renaissance, Courtyard, the Hampton, a couple of new hotels on the lower North Side as well. Maybe they don't see the market able to handle a lot more rooms without slashing prices, making it a lot harder to meet the construction costs for the project?

[bradjl2009]

I do question a little if a 500 room hotel is really necessary with all of the new hotels being built across downtown. It's not like Downtown is that big it's a hassle for a reasonably healthy people to across with no issue.