Janet Rowland, Mesa County Commissioner opened the meeting announcing that Mesa County and the City of Grand Junction would like feedback and cooperation from the brokerage community and development community, because of their direct contact with retail businesses. Mesa County continues to search for ways to reach out to retail stores and developers to create an inviting and appealing environment in order to stimulate sales tax income dollars and general economic development. Metaphoically spekaing, they are seeking the best flowers and enviornment to attract the bees who stimulate economic pollination and thereby bolster the health and productivity of our local government.
Debbie Kovalik, Grand Junction Visitors and Convection Bureau, presented statistics collected by the Bureau on hotel occupancy rates and a number of charts indicating industry activity in the Grand Valley. The hospitality tax charged on hotel rooms is a revenue generator for the City and County. Grand Junction has the highest occupancy rate in Colorado. She would like to see more hotels built to meet the demand.
The essence of the brokers' and developers' comments can be boiled down to two main ideas.
1) Prohibitive development fees. Developers continue to struggle with the high cost of development due to fees charged by the City of Grand Junction, CDOT, Ute Water, and Clifton Water. Ute water was specifically sited as having exorbitant and prohibitive water tap fees.
2) Financing through the down time. Many developers are holding onto projects difficult continue financing due to the ruptured capital markets. City representatives and County representatives mentioned that there are programs for the developers that would enable the city to provide the banks assurance and stimulate the lending process. These programs are now to be more widely publisized as a result of this meeting.
The meeting was informative and certainly established a sense of the City's and County's willingness to help stimulate retail development specifically in the underserved areas of Clifton, and areas targeted for redevelopment such as downtown.
