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Originally Posted by We vs us
Especially when you consider how many rooms in that area will be added between now and then (1600 between Fairmont and Marriott alone) without more convention space to support them.
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I would not call this tragic at all. I am a huge proponent of the convention center expansion but I don't think that considerations to huge hotels should motivate anyone in supporting that plan. That just gives credence to the people that say convention centers are a never-ending cycle of a push to build hotels and then a push to expand the convention halls over and over without benefit to the community.
Quote:
Originally Posted by We vs us
Also in re: the ACC expansion -- movement has been very very slow, and the current thinking of my leadership is that they'll take up discussion again in the New Year. Whether that means anything really moves forward remains to be seen. The hospitality community is unanimously behind it, but everyone's been surprised by the animosity towards the ACC and Visit Austin that certain council members have shown in the last few months.
So we're in limbo, honestly -- and time is ticking by. Assuming that the project would take, say, four years from council approval to completion, we won't have additional space till at least 2022. That's tragic.
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The council will take the issue back up when the city staff comes back with their analysis on the mayor's downtown puzzle. The Monitor said that study is suppose to come in this week but I think that's just the homelessness assessment. Whenever it comes in, it'll likely result in more deliberations and more requests of city staff to research some other bullshit to delay the process further.
The council needs to grow a pair and vote AGAINST the expansion instead of just finding new ways to delay the process. Put their names on paper that say they are against the project.They would rather keep the issue under the radar by finding new reasons to go back to city staff. They even wanted the city staff to regularly update them while they were doing their new round of research into the "downtown puzzle" so they can keep steering the city in the right direction of however they explained it.
This is the problem when you have a council elected in a strong economy with low unemployment. They don't care about maintaining and growing the economy. They only care about curbing development because those were the issues facing their constitutes. This is how you steer yourself toward another recession.
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