Let’s get this straight.
First, the local hotel market has been overbuilt for years, partly because the city government financed some deals of questionable merit. Heck, most any weekend, it’s easy to obtain a discount rate on a very nice luxury hotel room in downtown Houston.
Then, the private financing market tells us that the redevelopment of the Astrodome into a resort hotel is not financially feasible.
So, given those clear messages, what does the chairman of Harris County Sports & Convention Corp conclude? Explore a financially feasible use for the Dome property, such as demolishing the Dome to save the county the millions it has spent over the past five years mothballing the facility and provide much needed parking for the Reliant Park complex?
No, he would rather do precisely the one thing that will ensure that the county will lose the maximum amount in regard to the Dome property:
The county may consider picking up some costs of transforming the Reliant Astrodome into a luxury hotel or doing the $450 million redevelopment itself if a private effort to carry out the project falls through, a top official said Friday. [. . .]
“From day one, we have always known that it is an option to do this as a publicly developed program,” said Mike Surface, chairman of the Harris County Sports & Convention Corp., which manages Reliant Park. “If I’m looking out for Reliant Park’s interests, I would say, ‘County, you should think about doing this.’ “
And just how would the county pay for such a folly?
No property taxes would go toward the project in any case, he said.
If the county paid for part or all of the project, it would use hotel and sales taxes generated by the hotel complex and other Reliant Park revenue, such as concessions.
Except that Houston already has among the highest hotel and sales tax rates in the country. Moreover, the county doesn’t even own the rights to receive the proceeds from a substantial amount of the concession sales at Reliant Park, such as those the Texans and the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo generate in their events at Reliant.
Surface, bless his soul, sounds delusional:
Surface said he and some other board members are so confident in the project that the board may look for another developer to step in if Astrodome Redevelopment’s effort fails.
Thank goodness there appears to be at least one stable attitude among Harris County Commissioners toward the proposed Astrodome hotel:
County Commissioner Steve Radack has said, however, that he does not think the project makes sense and will oppose any county participation.
From my vantage point, it appears that Surface floated a trial balloon that Radack mercifully shot down. Hopefully, Radack’s clear statement will put an end to this foolishness. The county needs to move on and consider productive uses of the Dome property rather than chasing rainbows.