Monday, July 23, 2007
Thanks Gamblers! You are Finally Building the Hotel
Nearly a decade after the former mayor of Pittsburgh predicted that a new convention center would attract “two new hotels” to Downtown Pittsburgh and that there would be a lot of developers interested in partaking in the convention center building boom, we had this headline in Saturday’s paper: “State subsidy revives Downtown convention hotel plans”.
For years we have heard that Pittsburgh’s convention center needs additional hotel rooms to capitalize on its potential; we have also heard of the enormous economic spinoff benefits from tourism and visitors. Thus the former mayor’s exuberance about the promise of the center. The reality has proved otherwise and the General Assembly’s approval of a slots economic development fund will provide $34 million of the $103 million hotel project.
So after providing a good deal of the money to pay for the new convention center, the state is now paying a good deal of the construction of the hotel. Let’s hope that it does not depress the bookings at other Downtown hotels not lavished with such help and that the activity promised by convention planners comes to pass once the hotel is built.
For years we have heard that Pittsburgh’s convention center needs additional hotel rooms to capitalize on its potential; we have also heard of the enormous economic spinoff benefits from tourism and visitors. Thus the former mayor’s exuberance about the promise of the center. The reality has proved otherwise and the General Assembly’s approval of a slots economic development fund will provide $34 million of the $103 million hotel project.
So after providing a good deal of the money to pay for the new convention center, the state is now paying a good deal of the construction of the hotel. Let’s hope that it does not depress the bookings at other Downtown hotels not lavished with such help and that the activity promised by convention planners comes to pass once the hotel is built.
