HARLINGEN — Mayor Chris Boswell stands strong behind the city’s plans to build a $14 million convention center.
However, some people aren’t as sure of the concept as concerns are being raised about numbers showing decreases in incoming flights and concerns the 150-room up-scale hotel would take business from existing area hotels.
The city plans to use sales tax revenue ear-marked for economic development to pay back debt tied to the construction of the 43,000-square-foot convention center at the Harlingen Heights business district.
Meanwhile, developer BC Lynd would fund the construction of an upscale 150-room hotel while leasing, operating and staffing the convention center.
“It’s a total home run,” Boswell said Friday. “That’s one of the upsides of this project — we have a great partner.”
But some local hotel executives are concerned a big, luxury hotel would take away business in the city in which two new hotels already have opened in just more than a year.
“After that, the market will be saturated, so business would slow down for anybody else,” said Eddie Aguirre, general manager at the Hampton Inn & Suites in Harlingen. “It sucks away some business (other hotels) normally would get.”
For the rest of this story and many other EXTRAS, go to our premium site, www.MyValleyStar.com.
Subscribe to it for only $6.99 per month or purchase a print subscription and receive the online version free, which includes an electronic version of the full newspaper and extra photo galleries, links and other information you can’t find anywhere else.
