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.
1 comments:
Going by the latest reports regarding the hotels in Bangalore, the hospitality industry of the city is about to see serious growth and development in the coming times. Bangalore was one of the cities that had seen unprecedented growth and development owing to the boom of the IT sector and before long it became one of the most important IT hubs of not only India but also of the world. As such the number of business travelers to Bangalore also increased and hence important names in the hospitality industry opened up exclusive business hotels in Bangalore. Soon Bangalore became one of the most important commercial hubs of India and hence it saw rapid infrastructural growth and development. However, following the economic slump, not only the IT sector and overall business suffered, but also the hospitality sector received setback. Most obviously the occupancy rates for the budget hotels in Bangalore declined. However, the recent reports predict that India is still the place to be as far as development from all ends in concerned. Business will soon be bustling in India and the hospitality industry has also somewhat overcome the slump and the reports predicting growth have come as a breather.
Post a Comment