Bonds sold for hotel project

• By CHRIS GAUTREAU
• Advocate business writer
• Published: May 9, 2008 - Page: 1D - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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The Louisiana Public Facilities Authority said Thursday it completed a $50 million bond sale this week for developer Mike Wampold’s proposed upscale hotel project on Bluebonnet Boulevard, which is now set to open by early 2010.

The bonds were sold through the federal Gulf Opportunity Zone program, which offers tax breaks for development in hurricane-stricken areas.

According to LPFA, the hotel project will support 300 construction jobs and create 240 permanent jobs:

• 10 executive positions
• 50 clerical and sales jobs
• 100 jobs in food and beverage
• 80 jobs in janitorial and maintenance.

Wampold has proposed building the hotel from a partially completed dormitory building on the Jimmy Swaggart Ministries campus. Wampold bought the building and an accompanying 7.9-acre tract from Swaggart’s church in 2004 for $2.1 million.

Plans call for transforming the building into the 12-story, 300-room Renaissance Baton Rouge. The hotel will include an upscale restaurant operated by Dickie Brennan of New Orleans.

Wampold, who began considering the hotel project several years ago, acknowledged Thursday that completing it has taken longer than he anticipated.

He said the hotel plans have been hampered by fluctuating materials costs.

Wampold said costs for residential-building materials have fallen with the nation’s housing meltdown. But materials such as concrete, steel and copper used in larger projects are in big demand in China and other Asian countries that are in the midst of expansion booms.

“In the credit climate and the construction climate, with rising material costs, it’s a new world every day in costs,” he said. “It’s a little disconcerting, but we’re getting our hands around it.”

He also said Wampold Companies has been distracted by its other high-profile projects, like the City Plaza II office building downtown and The Crescent at University Lake condominiums on Stanford Avenue.

“We’re taking one thing at time and trying to do it right,” Wampold said. “The timing seems to work out right where we can stagger these projects and give them the focus they need.”