The boondoggle is dead, long live the next boondoggle

Today’s Peoria Journal Star article on the death of efforts to attach a hotel to the Peoria Civic Center saved the best, most telling paragraph for last.

Civic Center Authority Chairwoman Rebekah Bourland was discussing the lack of support for a proposed Hilton Garden Inn at Monroe Avenue and Kumpf Boulevard, the latest scheme in a list of schemes that the authority thinks is needed to lure business to the civic center.

“In the meantime, the Embassy Suites opens in the first week of November and anyone sleeping there won’t be paying (Peoria’s) hotel tax. I think the window is closing on an opportunity. I could be wrong. I hope I’m wrong.”

And that’s it in a nutshell. Peoria doesn’t need another hotel. If it did, the free market would provide for one. What this is about is that the PCC is addicted to the city’s Hotel, Restaurant and Amusement Tax, which was created more than 20 years ago to pay off the bonds needed to build the civic center. It was supposed to be temporary, and the PCC was supposed to be self-sufficient.

Instead, the PCC can’t bring in the revenue its cheerleaders/backers promised and the revenue its generating in additional sales taxes isn’t exactly lowering the burden for the taxpayers who actually live in Peoria. And the HRA still exists because the people who run the PCC keep coming up with new renovations they insist is needed to bring in conventions and events. And why is that? Because the damn thing is too small. It can’t bring in the really big concerts and really big conventions. Everyone knew that when it was being planned, but the cheerleaders and civic boosters managed to shout down the naysayers.

What happened in East Peoria is something anyone with even a basic knowledge of human nature could have predicted. People started looking for way to avoid the HRA tax. So some smart people build an Embassy Suites in East Peoria. The obvious solution is to eliminate or lower the HRA, but that’s too simple and elegant a solution for the deep economic thinkers in Peoria. The HRA tax MUST be preserved by using part of it to built a swanky hotel attached to the Peoria Civic Center.

Two things happened to stop it: Holiday Inn City Centre announced major renovations and Caterpillar Inc. (which has a stake in thePere Marquette Hotel) let it be known it doesn’t think a new hotel is needed.

Bourland’s statement that the Holiday Inn project wasn’t a factor is complete B.S., of course. The city’s own consultant said the either the renovations or a new hotel were needed to prop up the civic center. I’m guessing the “pretty serious discussions” planned by Mayor Ardis just might instead suggest city support for Pere Marquette renovations, which is a less obnoxious use of city funds than building a brand new hotel, but not not by much.

When the city build the PCC, it stuck its toes into what should have been left to private enterprise. Now the city finds itself being told that it has to compete against the tax-paying private businesses the PCC was supposed to support through increases room rentals. That’s the inevitable and very predictible result when government starts trying to pick and choose the winners.

Peoria Civic Center,Holiday Inn,Caterpillar