Posted on 07/23/2008 9:32:17 AM PDT by same old song
PORTSMOUTH
State Sen. Louise Lucas will not be able to use millions of dollars in financing to build a $65 million hotel and conference center in the city.
During a charged hearing Tuesday in which investors filled the City Council chambers, Vice Mayor Bill Moody Jr. and council members Elizabeth Psimas and Doug Smith voted against the low-cost financing while Mayor James Holley and Councilman Steve Heretick voted in favor of it.
Councilwoman Marlene Randall announced before the vote that she would abstain. Her husband has invested $2,000 in the project. Councilman Charles B. Whitehurst Sr. also abstained. He, too, is an investor in the project and also accepted a $10,000 campaign donation from Lucas.
Psimas and Moody said they could not vote in favor of Lucas’ project because they had not been convinced that no city funds would be requested to pay for it.
“Without that assurance that no taxpayer money will be used, I just cannot vote for this project,” Moody said.
Lucas, a Portsmouth Democrat, wanted the council to allow her to use up to $50 million in bonds.
The majority of the bonds would have come from the federal Empowerment Zone program, run by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In 1999, Norfolk and Portsmouth joined the program, which allowed them to access more than $100 million of the bonds.
The bonds were to be used to stimulate growth and create jobs in both cities.
Lucas, along with about 600 investors who have already contributed about $1.8 million to the project, wants to begin construction on the development in November. The project – which also is backed by other state politicians, local minsters, educators and a retired judge – would include up to a 250-room hotel and 50,000-square-foot conference center with a 16,000-square-foot ballroom.
It would be built on about 7 acres adjacent to a new Tidewater Community College
campus that is under construction. Portsmouth officials plan to develop Victory Village business park, off Interstate 264 at Victory Boulevard, as a city center.
Psimas said a majority of the region’s high-profile projects – Norfolk’s Granby Towers for example – have struggled to receive financing.
“What I draw from these examples and others is that we as a city have a responsibility to ensure that every project
we participate in has the necessary development sponsorship and a reasonable expectation for financing in place prior to asking the city for significant economic incentives,” Psimas said.
Psimas said she and several other council members asked Lucas’ attorney, William Nusbaum, to consider allowing them to make it clear that Portsmouth would not have to invest any public money in the project.
But she said Nusbaum denied that request and said such language would “raise a red flag to prospective bond purchasers about the commitment of the city to the project.”
Smith said he is concerned that the project would compete with the city-subsidized Portsmouth Renaissance Hotel and Waterfront Conference Center in downtown.
Portsmouth residents have invested about $40 million in that public-private partnership, he said.
“We should not be party to a project that puts our investment at risk,” Smith said.
Heretick questioned why council members did not raise the same concerns when it allowed the owners of a 250-room Holiday Inn to access up to $12 million of the federal low-cost financing.
“If this is how we treat developers who want to bring business to Portsmouth, God help us all,” Heretick said.
Holley said the proposed hotel and conference center is a good project. The city needs 25 more developments like it, he said.
“If it fails, well, that’s her failure; it’s not yours,” Holley said.
He said the Renaissance hotel and the Lucas project would attract two different groups of people.
The city needs a hotel that targets blacks, he said.
“It’s got my black picture in the lobby, but it’s a white hotel,” Holley said of the Renaissance.
Several investors and Holley said that despite Tuesday’s vote, the project is not over.
“You can vote it down,” Holley said. “It won’t go away; I can promise you that.”
“It’s got my black picture in the lobby, but it’s a white hotel,” Holley said of the Renaissance.
Several investors and Holley said that despite Tuesday’s vote, the project is not over.
“You can vote it down,” Holley said. “It won’t go away; I can promise you that.”
Oh really!
What, exactly, does that mean? Really, how does a hotel "target" blacks? I am sure there will be some great comic replies, of which most will have a basis in truth - but from a lib mindset, what DOES IT MEAN?
The minibars have 40s.
It accepts cash only.
Sounds like racial profiling to me.
“Sounds like racial profiling to me.”
It’s more than just racial profiling..
It’s entitlement and self imposed segregation.
There is no other ‘logical’ reason to build a hotel to attract ‘blacks’ because blacks can use any hotel ‘whites’ can. Anywhere.
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