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Downtown Center City panel submits plan By Greg Rohloff The Center City Development Committee, which sunsets at the end of this month, sent a proposal to the city of Amarillo for its successor board that would be commissioned to carry out downtown revitalization plans. The Planning and Zoning Commission would most likely consider the proposal for a nine-member board and a downtown development director as early as April, said Kelley Shaw, city planning director, at the March 13 meeting. That date would allow city commissioners to vote on the proposal in May. As submitted by the development committee, the new board would be appointed by the city. Members would serve staggered three-year terms with three new members appointed each year. The director, at a salary of between $60,000 and $90,000 plus benefits and expenses for such items as an office and travel and an administrative assistant, would report to the board. The director would be the primary contact point for developers, particularly those from outside Amarillo. And while the proposal for the successor board will take a couple of months before it is appointed, downtown plans are hardly standing still. Shaw said that after the Tax Incentive Reinvestment Zone was approved last fall, he has had contact with seven entities expressing interest in the downtown plan's top priority, a downtown convention hotel. The contacts represent such hotel chains as Embassy Suites, Intercontinental and Marriott, he said. A consultant hired by the city, Hunden Strategic Partners of Chicago, is expected to report to the city on a hotel feasibility study by the end of March, Shaw said. Hunden has worked on more than 100 hotel projects, including for projects in Fort Worth, College Station and Padre Island. Representatives from Hunden toured Amarillo about a month and a half ago, Shaw said. They expressed surprise at the number of hotels and motels along Interstate 40, he said, but indicated recently that the numbers in their initial study "looked good" for a downtown convention hotel. The recent announcement that the Fisk Building was under contract with an Irving developer, Newcrest Development to be turned into a 108-room Courtyard by Marriott, was not the best news for a larger convention hotel, Shaw said, but it should not be a deal breaker either. "The timing is not perfect," Shaw said. One potential problem is if the Fisk Building developer would seek out incentives from the TIRZ board, he said, but the Fisk development is in such an early stage that no request has been made for TIRZ. Setting up a new board with a paid executive raises a funding question, said Richard Brown, who did the bulk of the work in drafting the proposal. A sample budget for the director and the board ranged from between about $120,000 and $230,500, depending upon the level of pay, benefits, expenses and if an administrative assistant is hired. The city-funded Center City does not have access to funds to support a development director, Brown said, leaving funding to the city and to Potter County. Potter County Judge Arthur Ware said the county had recently financed some bonds at a savings of $400,000, which could be used if Potter County commissioners were so inclined to kick in for the new position. But the city would be best positioned to provide the bulk of the funding for the new position, Ware said. "Let them take the lead, let us follow." E-mail
comments about this story Posted: March 20, 2008
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