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

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D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhui met with members ofthe D.C. Councill on Monday and discussed the list of projectswith $704 million in subsidies that have alreadg been passed and could be diverted to the hotel. The list provided by the CFO's office includes the Southwest waterfront, the Arthur Capper/Carrollsburg residentia development on the Capitol Riverfront, the mixed-use O Street Market in Shaw and sevenm other economic development incentives.
The two council members who overseer committees with direct oversight of theissud — Councilmen Jack D-Ward 2, and Kwame Brown, D-At large — have said using subsidies from stalled projects is a strategyt they would consider to lowere the amount of new spending requirex to issue $750 million in bonds to build the $550 millioh hotel. The recession has slowed many The Washington Convention Center Authority andthe city’s hospitalitgy industry have been pushing for a headquarters hotel since constructionn of the center started in the late 1990s.
They argue a hotel is needed to draw large conventions to A 1,167-room Marriott Marquis is but boosters have been unable to securde private financing to complete the deal. D.C. Councilp Chairman Vincent Gray called the late Monday afternoonj meeting in his officewith Brown, Gandhi and Washington Convention Center Authority CEO Greg Evans and Brown have scheduled a June 24 jointt hearing on the matter. As they left the Evans and Brown said they are both committe d to gettingthe long-stalled hotel built, but they are lookinbg for ways to minimize the cost to the city, whicyh is facing a nearlh $1 billion 2011 budget gap.
Evans said other options beinyg discussed include trying to attracrt bank loans by footing only a portion of the cost or seekingg new development partners that coulf build the hotel more quicklyu or for alower price. D.C. has alread approved $187 million bond package that would fund aboug 25 percent ofthe hotel, but and have failer to attract an estimated $300 millioh in required debt financing. “The option that I like leasft is the city financing the entire Evans said.
Gandhi said shortlg after the meeting that there has not been discussionj about usurpingthe city’s 12 perceng debt cap, which it created last year in an effort to strengthen its standiny on Wall Street and would prevent the city from issuing hundreds of millions of dollars of new bondes for the hotel. He said he is all for a new hotel but not if it means damagingthe city’ws financial position. “We want to make it happen,” he “The question is how to make it happen.
” Southwesrt waterfront, $198 million; Housing Productionm Trust Fund, $190 million; Great Streets retail priorittyarea (neighborhood tax increment financing), $75 Capper/Carrollsburg payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, $55 million; O Streett Market, $46.5 million; Skyland Shoppinhg Center, $40 million; The Yards $30 million; Great Streets, $20 million; Downtowbn retail priority area, $16.0 million; Fort Lincoln retail priority area, $10 Arena Stage, $10 million; Rhode Island Place retail prioritu area, $7.2 million; and Broadcast Centet One, $6.4 million. The subsidiex total $704.15 million.
Combining some portion of that withthe $187 millionm already passed for the hotel could easily add up to the $750 millionb in bonds O’Dell says is needed for the Chairman Gray declined to comment.