Last-minute vote advances hotel plan

• By MARK BALLARD
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Jun 4, 2009 - Page: 1A

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In the waning moments of a hearing, after the opponents had left, a House committee did an about-face Wednesday and approved the use of tax dollars to build a private hotel at Perkins Rowe that the panel rejected hours earlier.

“Not much you can do, Louisiana politics,” bill opponent Ralph Ney said, shrugging upon learning of the unusual same-day reversal of a vote.

Ney testified before the House Municipal, Parochial and Cultural Affairs Committee earlier in the day against House Bill 877. He spoke on behalf of the Baton Rouge Area Hospitality Management Association. Ney left the hearing room after the measure initially failed on a vote of 6 for and 8 against.

The trade group is not against building a new hotel just off Bluebonnet Boulevard and adjacent to the Perkins Rowe shopping area or another proposed taxpayer-funded hotel at Bluebonnet and Anselmo Lane, about a half-mile away, Ney said.

But Ney contends it is unfair that other area hotels and motels have to pay their debts using their own money, rather than using taxpayer dollars.

Both hotel projects would use Tax Incremental Financing, called TIF. The TIF program allows use of local and state sales taxes to finance private economic development.

State Rep. Clif Richardson, R-Central, who sponsored HB877, said the Bluebonnet corridor was the type of “economically disadvantaged” area that TIF can help improve.

Richardson noted that the committee last week had approved without dissent Senate Bill 333, which would give TIF money to the 220-room hotel being developed by Mike Wampold down the street from Perkins Rowe.

Richardson said that finding private financing for the Perkins Rowe hotel is difficult, particularly with another private hotel nearby receiving TIF money.

Richardson said Wampold and Tommy Spinosa, who is developing Perkins Rowe, back both TIF projects because the growing medical corridor needs two new hotels to handle conventions and meetings likely to come because of the number of hospitals and medical offices in the neighborhood.

“They feel like each one would compliment each other,” Richardson said.

Spinosa testified that, of the 13 percent hotel-motel tax collected in the TIF district, about 6 percent of the tax would be used under TIF to repay the debt incurred constructing the hotel. The remaining 7 percent would not be affected, he said.

The diversion of the taxes for Spinosa’s investment would last until the debt is paid or after 40 years, according the bill’s language.