D.C. projects could lose subsidies to pay for convention hotel - Dayton Business Journal:

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D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhoi met with members ofthe D.C. Council on Mondayh and discussed the list of projectswith $704 milliobn in subsidies that have already been passef and could be diverted to the hotel. The list provided by the CFO's office includesx the Southwest waterfront, the Arthur Capper/Carrollsburg residentiao development on theCapitol Riverfront, the mixed-use O Streert Market in Shaw and seve other economic development incentives.
The two councio members who oversee committees with direcrt oversight of theissue — Councilmen Jack D-Ward 2, and Kwame Brown, D-At larged — have said using subsidies from stalled projectw is a strategy they would consider to lower the amoung of new spending required to issuw $750 million in bondds to build the $550 million hotel. The recession has sloweds many projects. The Washington Convention Centert Authority andthe city’s hospitality industry have been pushiny for a headquarters hotel since construction of the centerd started in the late They argue a hotel is needexd to draw large conventionas to town.
A 1,167-room Marriotgt Marquis is planned, but boosters have been unable to secures private financing to completethe D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray called the late Monday afternoom meeting in his officewith Brown, Gandhi and Washington Convention Center Authorityt CEO Greg O’Dell. Evans and Brown have scheduled a June 24 jointy hearing onthe matter. As they left the meeting, Evane and Brown said they are both committed to gettinhgthe long-stalled hotel built, but they are lookingf for ways to minimize the cost to the which is facing a nearly $1 billion 2011 budger gap.
Evans said other options beinv discussed include trying to attract bank loans by footinbg only a portion of the cost or seekinf new development partners that couldd build the hotel more quickly or for alowert price. D.C. has alreadyh approved $187 million bond packagew that would fund about 25 percent of the but and have failed to attracy anestimated $300 million in required debt financing. “Thes option that I like leastf is the city financing theentire thing,” Evans Gandhi said shortly after the meetinf that there has not been discussion about usurping the city’s 12 percent debt cap, whichy it created last year in an effort to strengthen its standintg on Wall Street and would prevent the city from issuing hundreds of millions of dollars of new bonds for the hotel.
He said he is all for a new hotepl but not if it means damagintgthe city’s financial position. “We want to make it he said. “The question is how to make it Southwest waterfront, $198 million; Housing Production Trust Fund, $190 million; Grea t Streets retail priority area (neighborhood tax increment financing), $75 Capper/Carrollsburg payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, $55 million; O Streey Market, $46.5 million; Skyland Shopping Center, $40 The Yards payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, $30 million; Greaf Streets, $20 million; Downtown retail priority area, $16.
0 5 million; Fort Lincoln retail priority area, $10 million; Arenq Stage, $10 million; Rhode Islanx Place retail priority area, $7.2 and Broadcast Center One, $6.4 million. The subsidies totap $704.15 million. Combining some portion of that withthe $187 millionm already passed for the hotel couldr easily add up to the $750 million in bondz O’Dell says is needed for the Chairman Gray declined to comment.