HVS was running a fourth and final feasibility study. They emailed him and told him it was not feas

Wikipedia View from space of the convention center's annual budget. When the Omni Dallas Hotel opened next to the convention center in downtown Dallas in 2011, the story was that it would dig the convention vacation packages to london that include theater tickets center out of its financial hole. That was a big part of the pitch in 2008 when then-Mayor Tom Leppert was selling voters on bonds for a city-owned hotel.
Wow. I don't remember. Did we ever look down in that hole? This week in response to an inquiry from City Council member Philip Kingston , the city's chief financial officer provided an unaudited statement of the convention center's fiscal year ending September 30, 2013. When I looked down into that debt cavern, I couldn't even see the hotel.
In 2013, according to data provided by Dallas Chief Financial Officer Jeanne Chipperfield , the convention center vacation packages to london that include theater tickets ran at an operating loss of $37 million against operating vacation packages to london that include theater tickets revenues of 32 million. So basically vacation packages to london that include theater tickets it was in the hole by 117 percent as a so-called "enterprise fund" or self-sufficient vacation packages to london that include theater tickets entity.
I looked back a year to the previous audited statement. In the fiscal year that ended in September 2012, the convention center had an operating loss of $33 million, so over one year its operating losses increased by 12 percent. If you were the one on the gurney and that was your trend line, your loved ones would already be arguing over who got your lawnmower.
It's not money down a rat-hole. The Convention Center is a kind of loss leader that draws a lot of business to the city, especially to hotels and the entertainment sector. But we never see a sharp pencil: how much should taxpayers pay to help out the hotel business, and how much is it helping exactly? And meanwhile, were we not told that opening vacation packages to london that include theater tickets the new convention hotel would begin to ease the burden?
The Dallas Morning News keeps telling vacation packages to london that include theater tickets us that revenues are increasing at the Omni, which is definitely a good thing. What I have not seen them talk about much is the long-term debt for the hotel -- a mortgage you and I have co-signed, dear taxpayer -- which actually increased by about $7 million in the most recently available audited statement from the city, not that that means the hotel is not doing well. By all accounts, vacation packages to london that include theater tickets it is renting rooms ahead of projection. vacation packages to london that include theater tickets But that only makes the trend at the convention center more ominous. We're pumping vacation packages to london that include theater tickets in saline and electrolytes, but the vitals just keep getting worse.
Leppert's pitch back in the day was that a major convention hotel was all Dallas needed to make its convention center boom. At the same time, however, experts like UT-San Antonio's Heywood Sanders were saying the convention industry was in tank mode nationally and nothing was ever going to make it boom again.
I do get that you don't close the doors and deep-six an entire industry just because it's on a long-term trajectory to the toilet. If that were true, not a single vacation packages to london that include theater tickets daily newspaper in American would still be publishing today. You ride it down, liquidate goodwill, mine it for cash-flow and all those other dismal dragged out garage-sale practices that are keeping so many of my old colleagues at dailies in paychecks vacation packages to london that include theater tickets these days.
But we don't want to deform downtown and even cheat it of what might otherwise be a bright future just to keep a dead letter alive a little longer. From the early discussions about the hotel to debates on where to put a second rail alignment through vacation packages to london that include theater tickets downtown, the Morning News has been an adamant promoter of putting all the city's eggs in the convention vacation packages to london that include theater tickets center basket, because ... let's see ... why would that be? Well, does it have anything to do with the convention center being in the otherwise moribund southwest corner of downtown where the people vacation packages to london that include theater tickets who own the paper also own a lot of land?
Downtown could go so many other ways. Kingston sees the future as mainly residential and walk-to-work office, meaning we should put a lot of our eggs and our rail lines in that basket instead of sticking them all in downtown's deadest corner. In that larger equation, the convention center hotel may not be a bad thing, just not much of anything.
At the very least, would it not be a wise thing for the city to debate some of these questions openly and candidly: 1) Is current downtown development policy tipped too much toward the convention center corner of downtown? 2) Do we know what the future is for convention vacation packages to london that include theater tickets centers nationally? 3) Are we sure a bet on the convention vacation packages to london that include theater tickets center is our best bet for downtown?
HVS was running a fourth and final feasibility study.  They emailed him and told him it was not feasible (would never pay for itself).  So they gave him a choice - finish the feasibility study (not feasible) or . . . change it to a "market study".  For you see, a market study doesn't have to measure feasibility.  In the biz, a market study is also known as a 10 lb sales brochure.  See?  No problem!
The City then dumped its emails due to lack of space since those terrabyte hard disks were upwards of $100 a piece and the City was in a financial vacation packages to london that include theater tickets crunch.  Why it might have filled half of one of those bigass hard disks.
Unfortunately for Gonzales, HVS has to keep meticulous file records by law for years and also so the old fat sow doesn't roll over them, or as Rick said in Casablanca on why he came to that shithole  "I came for the waters".  "But Rick Algiers is in the desert!", says Capt. Renault.
You's have to revisit it, but apparently the study boys and girls only meant the loss attributable only to the hotel part.  I thought they were only running a $3 Mill loss per annum, which would increase to $12 if they built the damn thing.
Come on, lets cut through the bullshit. This was Leppert, Suhm & Gonzales catering to the aristocrats that wanted it: Bob Rowling, who owns Omni Hotels, Jack Matthews, who was best buds with Leppert.
Leppert, Suhm and Gonzalez structured the debt in such a manner that payments are artificially low for the first few years (basically, they borrow more money to help pay interest on the existing debt), then... Payments escalate sharply.
@ roo_ster  Unfortunately, Leppert, Suhm and Gonzalez built us a bit of a "trap."  The hotel is worth several hundred million less than the amount of the debt.  So... if we sell the hotel, the City would have to write a several hundred million check to make up the difference--- this is money the City doesn't have.
@ WylieH  If we sold the hotel on the open market today, how much would it fetch?  Not $675,000 per room, the current debt per room!  Operating margins look okay now, but only because we're not even making full interest payments, much less paying off the actual debt.  Call Goldman Sachs and ask them how much they want to take the hotel off our books and fulfill our obligations.  Ballpark, around $250 million.
What is the economic impact of banking? Toss them another $57 million? What about the economic impact of warehousing? $57 million? Economic impacts of data storage, web security contracting, lipstick research, grease disposal? Just saying. And, wait ... Who measures economic impact? It's usually the people getting vacation packages to london that include theater tickets the $57 million. Shouldn't we try harder on that?
It was in reference to a car that has sat on the lot too long.  Somebody offers a price that results in a $2,000 loss to the dealer.  The dealer doesn't take it, but accepts a $4,000 loss thirty days later.
You're generally correct, the hotel is worth several hundred million dollars less than the amount of the related debt (which is increasing, yet again, as the City uses part of the bond offering proceeds to fund a City-owned high-end restaurant complex in a new building).
The true operating margins are much worse than they appear vacation packages to london that include theater tickets on the surface due to the fact that the hotel is exempt from property tax and not only gets to keep its own sales taxes, but also get subsidies via sales taxes collected on competing hotels. And then, of course, there are huge direct financial subsidies paid each year by the Federal government.
@ JimSX @ ammercngrl I had a econ professor whose anti-subsidy/tariff mantra was "Just give 'em the goddamn money!"  He'd make the whole class say it.  The point was, if the goal is to "keep people in jobs" it's more efficient to just hand the $57m/year vacation packages to london that include theater tickets to the people who need the jobs, instead of subsidizing money-losing businesses for the purposes of employing them in make-work jobs.
Again, one would need to see the financial performance of the asset to estimate the price an investor or operator would pay. I don't have those numbers, and I don't believe anyone on this board does either.
Yes, beyond a possible vacation packages to london that include theater tickets price. You are comparing this to the Standard Hotel, which commands average vacation packages to london that include theater tickets daily rates that are multiples of the Omni's, plus far greater barriers to entry for potential competition.
@ ammercngrl So you're saying vacation packages to london that include theater tickets the economic benefit of the convention center consists largely of the amount of money people spend on hotel rooms when they come to a convention...   yet, curiously, no private enterprise vacation packages to london that include theater tickets was willing to build a hotel there, square in the path of the supposed money tsunami emanating from the convention center.
Easy there Sparky...there is a bonified formula you can use to determine how many convention delegates or trades show attendees come in and out of Dallas, I looked at the website but don't see attendee vacation packages to london that include theater tickets numbers...you may have to do your homework before spouting off with an unsupported opinion, next, take that number x the average length of stay in a hotel, again you would want to uncover the factual vacation packages to london that include theater tickets account of how long the average vacation packages to london that include theater tickets person who spends money to stay in the hotel, and that would be available I'm guessing from the convention center, the CVB or the city, multiply by you state tax. The Dallas CVB says 13million people a year x 2.5 days average stay x average hotel rate I'm guessing is $150-200 per night 6.25% is tax revenue generated, which BTW helps keep your tax rate at said 6.25%....THEN...determine what the average spend per person is to get the full picture of the economic