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A whole bunch of locals mistakenly see democracy in action in Crow Holdings' plan to force a referendum on the City's plans to build a convention center hotel. I see a greedy real estate mogul desperately trying to protect his interests.
In the truest sense of demagoguery, the Crow Holdings folks are already engaged in sending out false information such as the funds the city is using for the hotel project are being swiped from the same account the funds public safety, street repair, etc. Don't believe it. The financing is a complicated matter but the hotel is being funded through revenue bonds, not general fund moneys used to pay for basic city services. What will waste taxpayers money is the cost of the election the Crow Holdings folks are seeking.
This entire move by Crow Holdings is a farce and a waste of everybody's time. What they want is the following amendment added to the City Charter: “The voters of the City of Dallas declare that direct or indirect participation by the city in the enterprise of owning, financing, constructing or operating a hotel or other lodging facility would inappropriately divert valuable taxpayer dollars and other civic resources and attention from the provisions of essential city services, which is the primary function of municipal government.”
So what would that mean? Absolutely nothing, because no "valuable taxpayer dollars" are being diverted. So even if this does pass, which seems highly unlikely, it would do absolutely nothing to stop construction of a convention center hotel.
Let me explain Crow Holdings real motivation. There are many associations that hold meetings -- mini-conventions, if you will -- that are too small to be considered for a convention center. Most of these meetings are held in hotel ballrooms. And a significant number of these meetings are currently booked in the Anatole Hotel, owned and operated by Crow Holdings. However, I'm betting that once the convention center hotel is up and running, the overwhelming majority of meetings now being booked by the Anatole will switch to the newer facility, mainly because it is being designed and will be marketed specifically to attract just that kind of business. Crow Holdings is seeing its business going elsewhere and is trying to hoodwink the people of Dallas into helping it prevent that from happening.
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And yet who will be on the hook when this thing inevitably fails?
Dallas taxpayers.
And it will fail. Heywood Sanders, author of the only non-biased study on the subject out there, has shown, if it made business sense to build a convention center hotel someone would have done it for profit instead of needing to dip into taxpayer wallets.
Or worse, ruining the city's ratings when the bill comes due.
Does Harlan have an interest in this? Of course. He's the first to admit it. That was the first thing he said when we sat down in his office about six months ago to discuss the city-owned hotel.
The thing is, you can be right on an issue that you do have a stake in.
Now -- and I say this with great respect for Jack Matthews -- if you're really concerned about "greed" as a motivation that disqualifies you, what about his motive in this? After all, he puts up almost nothing and the city of Dallas assumes all the risk to the tune of half a billion dollars. That's $500,000,000.00
It's all upside for Jack, and I don't blame him for taking the deal. But if you're concerned about purity of motives, his are no more distanced than the Crow people's.
The city keeps sinking more and more into that convention center -- this hotel scheme is their latest ploy -- in a city where hotel occupancy is 60 percent (I think only Detroit -- Detroit! -- is worse.) We're not and will never be a Las Vegas or San Diego or Orlando. People barely use that convention center now and a hotel will not make a difference.
I asked the head of the Convention and Visitor's Bureau how many more -- in his most optimistic dreams -- conventions Dallas would have if they had their hotel.
His answer?
Nine.
That's nine conventions for the price tag of $500,000,000.
That brings the total to 25 a year. The national average of guest-room nights for a citywide convention is 1.9 nights. Even rounding that up to three room nights, and assuming full occupancy during conventions, that accounts for just 75 nights out of the year.
What about the other 290 nights?
Sorry, it doesn't matter if it's Harlan Crow backing this or Steve Jobs or Aquaman. It's a bad idea.
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