Convention Center Hotel: DBA?

My appreciation to TheMail for sharing this information:

Nikita Stewart and Tim Craig broke the news in Thursday’s Post about the Fenty administration’s plan to float bonds and borrow at least $750,000,000 to finance a convention center hotel (“DC Weighs Bonds for Convention Center Hotel.") After all, if there’s a shortage of anything in this town, it’s a shortage of hotel rooms. We’re about as lacking in hotel rooms as we are of lawyers. And we can be assured that the $750,000,000 figure will be an absolute cap, and that additional expenses will be well hidden in other parts of the government’s budget and never acknowledged. It’s another budget busting outrage that rivals and may outdo the baseball stadium scam of taxpayers, with the added benefit that it will break straight through DC’s debt cap on borrowing. The solution, of course, will be to amend the law to raise the debt cap, at the cost of ruining DC’s credit rating with Wall Street. But who cares, except all those NIMBY’s and nay-sayers who don’t understand why it shouldn’t be government’s business to enrich the wealthiest corporations in town.

The bill, the “New Convention Center Hotel Amendments Act of 2009,” Bill 18-310, is posted on the city council’s web site, but the mayor’s cover letter for the bill is not online. Here are the two paragraphs of that letter that will be the core of the administration’s argument for this new giveaway: “This legislation would authorize the Washington Convention Center Authority (WCCA) to develop, construct, own, operate, and maintain the new convention center hotel (‘Hotel’) at the intersection of 9th Street and Massachusetts Avenue, NW. The legislation authorizes the WCCA [Washington Convention Center Authority] to issue bonds for this purpose, establishes a non-lapsing New Convention Center TIF Fund, and authorizes and approves the negotiation and execution of certain documents with Quadrangle Development Corporation for the development, construction and equipping of the Hotel and with Marriott Hotel Services, Inc. to manage and operate the Hotel.

“This legislation will bring both immediacy and certainty to the development of the Hotel. Due to the conditions of the financial markets, the developer was not able to secure the financing it needs to own and operate the Hotel as originally planned, nor has it been able to state with any certainty when it may be able to secure that financing. It is critical for the continued success of WCCA, and the economic benefits the city derives from it, that the Hotel be opened as soon as possible. With passage of this legislation, WCCA will be able to go to the bond market immediately, maintain in place the present development and hotel operator team, and maintain the present schedule for construction of the Hotel.” Capitalism is dead; long live the government enterprise economy.