City’s new project lacks planning
Collegian Opinion

    The Fort Worth City Council voted a few weeks ago to continue plans to build a $130 million hotel.

   The council’s 7-2 vote does not signify the hotel will be built, but it does make very clear the council’s intent to pursue the debated project.

   City officials say the addition of this hotel is necessary to draw more convention money. This supposed necessity is the city council’s main argument in the proposal.

   Adding another hotel in the downtown area will mean this new hotel will be competing with others in the area, drastically affecting their revenue.

   By proceeding with the plan, Fort Worth is becoming a business. If Fort Worth becomes a competitor of area hotels, it must stop receiving any city funding. Competitors cannot fund each other.

   If approved, the hotel could open by 2006 and according to published reports would be under the management of the Hilton Hotel Corporation.

   Council members argue that if the hotel is not built, Fort Worth will lose tourism money to big cities such as Houston, Austin, Sacramento and Indianapolis, all of which are planning new convention hotels.

   Besides Fort Worth’s entering the hotel business, there is another alarming fact.

   Mayor Kenneth Barr told the packed council chambers after the vote that the council has been working on this project for seven years.

   So for at least seven years, Fort Worth has needed a convention hotel. Instead of seeking out companies in the hotel business and being proactive in the search, the city council appears to have done nothing.

   However, the council has proposed that the Hilton Corporation manage the property once it is completed. This proposal inspires the obvious question of why Hilton cannot foot the bill for the construction.

   What has been done is that city council time and taxpayers’ money have been wasted yet again.

   City officials have sat and watched the real estate in the downtown area disappear over those seven years.

   We will not argue the need for a downtown convention center hotel. The problem begins with the funding.

   The city is already spending $75 million to upgrade and refurbish the Fort Worth Convention center.

   City leaders argue the proposed 600-room luxury headquarters hotel is needed to lure large conventions to the city. Cities can do many things to attract large hotel corporations, but Fort Worth has apparently done little to none of these things in the previous seven years.

   Now the council says it will be at least another four years before any hotel could open in the area. That means 11 years will have passed between the conception and completion.

   Fort Worth has proposed to build the hotel on land that is now occupied by TCC’s May Owen Center.

   The selection of the land has been completed. Fort Worth must now convince voters—wait, voters don’t get to decide.

   In that case, why has the council waited this long?