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Originally Posted by OTownandDown
How many of the other eight box hotels within a 2km radius did the City subsidize for construction? There are a further 10 or so within 5km...
Did the City provide tax breaks or subsidies for the EY Centre to be built? How about the Infinity Centre? These are conference spaces within about 2 minute drive of the airport.
Did the airport chip in for the airport spur of the O-Train? How much did that cost the City to build? Doesn't that count as helping the airport?
I think a hotel is not really required here, there are a thousand rooms within a very short drive, but it does make the airport look fancy on paper. Many airlines bus their staff downtown for overnight stays anyways.
Large hotel brands especially do not require a subsidy. If the business case isn't good for the hotel to build on the site, and the airport can't afford to sweeten the deal themselves, then maybe it's not the right time.
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I don't know if the City funded the EY Centre, but they gave up the convention space at the Ottawa Civic Centre to benefit EY and give it a near monopoly on many types of trade shows and conventions. I'd call that a subsidy of sorts. And it's owned by Shenkman, of OSEG, for whom we'll have invested nearly a Billion dollars to support. We're also building a transit station exclusively for them.
The City did not subsidize other hotels or convention centres nearby as they don't benefit anyone in particular.
The airport funded it's O-Train station nearly 100% (unlike EY Centre), with the Feds chipping in chump change.
A hotel directly connected to the airport would elevate the facility to the same class as... Winnipeg... along with every other Canadian City over 1 million.
The subsidy is to help a semi public institution, the international airport, bounce back from a tough few years. An airport hotel could help us become a hub, which is sorely needed to alleviate Trudeau and Pearson.
And Germain isn't considered, at lest not in my book, a "large hotel brand". It's a Quebec based hotel chain with under 20 locations. This is not Marriott.
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Is there some sort of new program where the City is handing out tax breaks for new hotel rooms built within City limits? Or what of the tax breaks that Mark Motors took advantage of? If those programs don't exist, why should this be a special case, just because its the airport?
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The program does exist... for the airport. That's the point. if the program exists, pay up. If you don't want to pay up, don't establish the program and keep it going.
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