Downtown Hotel Proposal
If you haven’t been paying attention, there’s a big push to get a new hotel built north of Vets and Wells Fargo Arena.
This week several presentations were made, and the ugliest one was of course chosen. This new hotel is going to be a big part of the skyline, so I guess in the spirit of the beautifulRuan Building the county has spoken.
From my eyes I see Des Moines needing something “higher end” than Marriott or Embassy Suites. My wife used to work at Wells Fargo Financial downtown and she always fielded complaints from people traveling from California to Des Moines about the amount of stars next to the hotels we have here.
Could Des Moines use a Westin, Four Seasons, W, etc? The hotels we have now are great, but to the business person traveling to Des Moines that hasn’t seen them yet–maybe not so much. We all know that the Hotel Fort Des Moines is great, but to a CEO traveling into Des Moines from San Francisco, what do they know?
I love the hotels that we have downtown. I’ve heard nothing but good things about Suites at 800 Locust, The Embassy Suites are nice, I loved the Marriott when I stayed there (and it’s in the middle of a $14,000,000? renovation), Fort Des Moines is good enough for Presidents, so it must be nice. I know the Kirkwood is now condos, and I don’t know much about the Savoy. Overall though, Des Moines may not have some of the big names, but we’ve got some decent hotels downtown right now.
I’d love to see the county re-think what they’re going to do here. If they have to pour almost $30,000,000 of public funds into the hotel perhaps they’re moving too fast. I hate to see public funds used to cover a project that is too risky to succeed on private funds. If the county is dead set on pouring that kind of money into the project, put it into something that draws people to the area–make it THE hotel that people want to stay at. Make it architecturally significant. Make it THE hotel that improves the skyline of Des Moines. Make it THE hotel that makes executives excited to come to Des Moines. Make it something new, something great, something wonderful, and something that will improve downtown by it’s presence. Make it something that doesn’t compete with what’s already there, make is something that adds to everyone.
Please don’t pour $28,000,000 into something that sits in a terrible spot, is ugly, and doesn’t add anything to downtown except higher vacancies! Perhaps the developers that have built livable space downtown, or want to could be subsidized $28,000,000 as well, that way everyone is on a level playing field?
Here’s a few links for reference:
Let me know what you think about the hotel proposal–be sure to comment on this one!
Mike Says:
I think your right on the money. I dont think downtown needs more of the same. I think downtown needs somthing different.
Why does our tax money always have to fund these types of things?
Why cant we do somthing like, have Commercial Space for shopping on the first level, put in a good resturant. Hotel rooms in the middle, and condos on top?
Overall I think having more hotels downtown will make each hotel owner have to work harder and in the end the customer will win.
Mulberry Mike
Posted on March 10th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Philby Says:
I’d be surprised if the proposal gets completed as it is currently. for one thing i think I read somewhere the city is only going to kick in money if the hotel is built to the south of the arena - so who knows perhaps the design of the building could change as well?
Posted on March 12th, 2007 at 7:41 am