At least two residents want the city to slow down its pursuit of a downtown boutique hotel, saying the proposal and the $4.3 million in incentives offered by the city have not been properly reviewed.
Richard Juday told the council Tuesday night that the city and the Longmont Downtown Development Authority are rushing to get the $24.5 million, 84-room hotel built at Third Avenue and Kimbark Street while sacrificing parking and other cherished amenities in the downtown area.
“LDDA has scrambled to Council and tried to get a boutique hotel deal done that is at odds with Longmont’s nature,” Juday told councilors during a public invited to be heard portion of the regular council meeting. “The City would turn over a valuable piece of downtown land to an out-of-state company and additionally donate several million dollars for that company to build themselves a hotel.”
The Mississippi-based Thrash Group is the developer behind the Longmont hotel. The company has developed hotels and apartments across the United States and is the operator of the Origin Red Rocks and Origin Westminster hotels in Colorado.
The project is attracting a public financial contribution of about $4.3 million to offset the cost of the hotel and parking structure, according to a city staff report.
The funds from the city and the Longmont Downtown Development Authority are in addition to a land conveyance from the Longmont General Improvement District, according to the staff report.
The financial contributions include the appraised valuation of the LGID land contribution, $2.3 million in Tax Increment Funds and about $400,000 in Downtown Improvement Program proceeds from the LDDA, the staff report states.
The balance of the funding is to be provided by the city in Lodgers Tax reimbursements generated exclusively from the hotel, the report states. The Lodgers Tax is the only funding contribution from the city.
The city says that assuming an estimated land value of $400,000, the Lodgers Tax contribution is estimated at $1.2 million.
The overall public agency financial contribution to the project is 17.6% of cost, the city says.
In exchange, the hotel is expected to generate $108 million over 10 years for the city, according to the Longmont Downtown Development Authority.
Juday said the hotel proposal was done too quickly and under the “covers in the dark of night.” Most residents only learned of the hotel idea through the local media, he said.
“This is a rubber-stamp giveaway of the parking lot — and another $4.3 million to boot — for a distant company wanting to profit from our city’s presently desirable nature,” Juday told the council.
Resident Lance Whittaker told the council too many downtown businesses succumbed to the COVID-19 slowdown and a “high-end” development will only make the situation worse.
“There is lots of pull back from people from all these large infrastructure (projects) being put around our town,” Whittaker said. “Nobody in Longmont wants these high end … residences here.”
