Plan For Palm Beach County Convention Hotel Stalled

MANALAPAN, FL— The $80 million Palm Beach County Convention Center being built here will open next year without a hotel, according to the The Palm Beach Post . Plans for a scaled-down 350-room hotel next to the convention center on land controlled by CityPlace are on hold until the finance market improves— which could be as long as a year and a half, the hotels developer told the Post. “Hotel financing completely dried up post-9/11,” said Ron Wackrow, head of Related Lodging, the hotel arm of CityPlace developer The Related Group. Related has talked about selling condos on the hotels top floors “to buy down the cost of the hotel,” Wackrow said, but condominium financing is hard to get because so many residential units are being built near downtown West Palm Beach. “Lenders dont like it,” he said. “The only way you can do the rest of the [hotel]financing is if the condo market comes back.” Tourism officials have long said a hotel is key to the convention centers success. But convention center manager Ken Foster said hes adjusted his marketing to appeal to smaller groups, or to groups that dont mind staying in several nearby hotels. Relateds lease with West Palm Beach calls for a hotel to be under construction within a year after the convention center opens. If not, the county has the option of buying the land and finding its own hotel developer. CityPlace lawyer Lyn Harris stated the land is appraised “in the $11 million range.” The convention center should be finished by the end of July 2003, according to Mac McLaughlin, president of the Palm Beach County Convention and Visitors Bureau. That means Related would have to start building its hotel by July 2004, 14 months from now. SOURCE: The Palm Beach Post, FL