Email from blog reader Ron Palmer: Mayor wants to spend $300k on finding hotel developer
Mayor John Ruttan is again wanting to spend $300k on finding a hotel for the white elephant conference centre. Didn’t Council defeat that motion previously? Has City staff contacted major hotel chains to invite proposals? (at no cost)
None will build this hotel unless there is a strong likelyhood that the project will make a profit and that, I suspect, is why prospective investors are not falling over themselves to get the job. Like the conference centre, we the taxpayers would be footing the bill for a perpetual money losing venture. For instance: take a good look at how many are employed at our seldom used and very expensive conference centre; what could they do all day?
– Ron Palmer, Nanaimo
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Good comment.Note also that in early April the Mayor indicated to the press that he has 32 “expressions of interest for hotel possibilities city-wide,with about two-thirds interested in the VICC location.”
(See my article “Strange Comments by the Mayor”).
We have an Economic Development Office within the bureaucracy of Nanaimo City Hall. Use this office for it’s intent. Let them find interested parties, not a local real estate office. What is the point of having an Economic Development Team that does not develop economic requirements that the city needs?
Well, they must have read this and without a head of the EDO we cannot blame them for inaction. Perhaps we should turn to the Real Estate Office at City Hall and ask Bill Corsan who is listed as the current contact at http://www.nanaimo.ca/staff_contacts/directory.aspx