Evansville City Councilmen McGinn & Adams Team Up to Propose a Hotel and Arena Before Ballfields Resolution

Two members of the Evansville City Council have teamed up to propose a resolution that would send a message to the Vanderburgh County Commissioners and the Vanderburgh County Council that the Evansville City Council does not support going forward with the Roberts Stadium Ballfields project as currently proposed by the Evansville Convention and Visitors Bureau. The specifics of the resolution basically proposes that the City of Evansville has enough money committed right now to the ongoing Evansville Arena project and a looming response from Downtown Hotel Developers that will certainly require some incentives to secure a binding development agreement for a Convention Hotel to support the Centre that has suffered this year since the closing of the Executive Inn and the Evansville Arena that is slated to open in less than a year. The full text of the proposed resolution is below.

RESOLUTION C-2010- 22
SPONSORED BY McGinn, Adams

DOWNTOWN HOTEL AND ARENA PARKING BEFORE BALLFIELDS

Whereas: the City of Evansville is currently engaged in a major building project, a multipurpose facility hereinafter referred to as the Arena, and

Whereas: It is of the utmost importance, to insure the success of the Arena, and to insure the success of a County owned and operated facility known as the Centre, that a hotel and parking facilities be built in conjunction with the Arena, and

Whereas: The Evansville Visitors and Convention Bureau has available to it, as a method to promote tourism, the ability to utilize certain monies raised by an Innkeepers tax, and

Whereas: The Evansville Visitors and Convention Bureau desires to utilize said tax source to build certain facilities, to wit, baseball and softball diamonds and related facilities, and,

Whereas: the Visitors and Convention Bureau has also advanced a plan to utilize a portion of the aforementioned Innkeeper’s tax to demolish a City of Evansville facility known a s Roberts Stadium, and

Whereas: the Common Council of the City of Evansville believes it is more important to the success of the area that the aforementioned hotel and related parking facilities be built utilizing available funds, including the Innkeepers tax, and that the completion of the hotel should take precedence over the aforementioned baseball and softball project and demolition of Roberts Stadium, and

Whereas: It is the desire of the Common Council of the City of Evansville to encourage all governmental agencies within the County of Vanderburgh and the City of Evansville to delay any plans to utilize any portion the Innkeepers tax for any project until completion of the hotel and parking facilities needed to insure the success of the Arena and the Centre, and

Whereas: the Common council of the City of Evansville believes that a better use of the Innkeepers tax would be to utilize it, if needed, to complete the aforesaid hotel and parking facility.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that, the Common Council of the City of Evansville respectfully asks all governmental agencies and officials within the City of Evansville and within the County of Vanderburgh, including but not limited to The Vanderburgh County Commissioners, the Vanderburgh County Council, the Evansville Visitors and Convention Bureau, the Board of Parks Commissioners and all other agencies and officials to place a moratorium on the use of any Innkeepers tax for any project within the County of Vanderburgh until such time as the plans and financing arrangements for a hotel and parking facilities are completed and to utilize said funds, if needed, to complete the hotel and parking facilities so as to insure the success of the Arena project and the subsequent success of the Centre.