Maybe (Dallas, Tyler, Jacksonville: 2014, hotel, construction)

[Mark Senior]

Council OKs site for convention center, hotel

By DAYNA WORCHEL
dworchel@tylerpaper.com


A convention center and hotel could be built at the intersection of Toll 49 and Broadway Avenue possibly within two years, putting Tyler in a better position to score lucrative conventions.

The Tyler City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved the site, allowing a Dallas-based company to begin work on a 250-room Marriott and a 27,000-square-foot convention center.

Encore Enterprises was given the green light on the project, which was estimated to cost between $60 and $70 million, with groundbreaking slated for summer 2014, Mayor Barbara Bass said.

Marriott will pay for building the hotel, while the convention center construction will be paid for with the city’s hotel-motel tax revenues.

The hotel could generate $600,000 in new hotel occupancy tax revenue, city officials said.

Tom Mullins, chief executive officer and president of both the Tyler Economic Development Council and the Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce, called the hotel and conference center a positive for Tyler.


“We’ll be more competitive as a community for bidding on larger conferences, and people can come to the (conference center) and spend money and bring new dollars into the community,” he said.

Mullins said commercial development in the area would follow, particularly with the planned extension of Old Cumberland Road west toward Old Jacksonville Highway.

With projects such as this in mind, Senate Bill 349, passed in 2011, added 2 percent to Tyler’s hotel and motel occupancy tax rate.

That tax rate was supported by Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, and former Rep. Chuck Hopson, R-Tyler.

The complex will be built on the east side of Broadway Avenue, south of Toll 49, on 15 acres. There will be a retention pond on site.

“We looked at the (Toll 49 and Broadway Avenue) site because of the support services in the area and looked at transportation and future planning and development,” Glenn Pederson, president of the hospitality division of Encore told city council members.




It has been estimated that Tyler loses about 20,000 visitors a year because of the lack of hotel and convention center space.

“My own state CPA organization can’t meet here because of this,” Mayor Bass, a certified public accountant, said after the council meeting.

The next step is hiring an architect for preliminary development, Mayor Bass said.

“We designed the contract so that (the) council could be involved in every step,” she said.

Regarding Encore, she said, “Many developers didn’t want to come to a smaller market. This developer has the financial means to make this happen, and it’s a good investment for them.”

On Jan. 9, City Council members voted unanimously to enter into a private services contract with Garfield Traub Development to act as program manager to help Tyler land a conference center and hotel.

The contract calls for the firm to document the pre-development activities, document negotiations and keep tabs on design of the facility and construction