The city has plans to use some of the hotel tax (think Downtown South) to incentivize another HQ hotel (400 -600 rooms). I believe the hotel mentioned at those meetings is a goal and still a long way off.
I assume the hotel would have to be on City property somewhere. I guess the obvious area would be near the convention center, but I kinda like the idea of a large hotel as part of the redevelopment of the block east of moore square. Could really work in tandem with Marbles expansion and the park renovation and easy access to transit / BRT for visitors with the bus center there.
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I’d expect them to use the lots between the Marriott and the performing arts center. I believe that’s City, no?
I think it might be cool to incorporate the new hotel into the convention center expansion onto RedHat. Maybe on SW corner of S Dawson and W Cabarrus (kinda behind where the stage is now). As much as I would hate to see RedHat go, I think that would make an impact on the “moneyshot”.
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Yea that’s the obvious spot. Just thought it’d be nice to spread hotels around downtown to give visitors options instead of 5 basically right next to each other. Next to Moore Square could also help City Market a bit.
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I would love to see a re-design and expansion of the current CC. Also, have them incorporate a HUGE Classical fountain…kind of mesh the Tech Cool with Classical…
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The reality is that hotels need to be clustered around the convention center in order for it to be successful. We can’t get large conventions that span several days without walkable rooms to the center.
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A better laid out RLine or trolley system would help bridge that problem. Maybe even make it fun for visitors. The Raleigh Trolley system has fun ring to it. Too bad our leaders won’t risk doing anything interesting.
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The CC is, like, brand new…
Trust me, without thousands of rooms in walking distance, Raleigh will not be able to compete for the large conventions that it wants. Certainly there can be other hotels in the area that are accessed by trolley, uber, car, etc., but the majority need to be walkable.
Scattered boutique hotels around DT are a great idea but the 400-600 room variety need to be prioritized for the CC area.
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I will email Commissioner Adamson who mention this project this past Monday .
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I just got a reply from Vickie Adamson concerning the 400 to 500 room future hotel .
All The Commissioners are in Greensboro for their annual meeting & Vickie said that
she would be back to Raleigh Sunday & that she would get back to me with information
about the hotel .
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Person/Martin corner to convention center: 0.5 mile walk, ~12-15 minutes. doubletree in nashville is 0.6 mile, 337 rooms. Doable.
Foot traffic through downtown from visitors could also create more business.
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That’s where I think it would work best, too.
I think I prefer downtown’s land being used for residents and daily living stuff and less focused on the visitor and their concerns and needs. With no monumental attractions to visit, I personally think Raleigh is too concerned with the convention business and tourism. Tourism is the realm of places that have no other economy.
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I also don’t really think of this area as a tourist destination, but Wake County did have record visitation last year.
“The 16.8 million total visitors was a 4.8 percent increase over 2017. And visitor spending increased to $2.7 billion, according to data collected by research organization Tourism Economics and STR. The record spending resulted in more than $268 million in state and local tax revenues in 2018.”
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Yup. Companies and associations have the need to congregate on regular intervals with a regular rotation of sites. Even if we all get connected by some great rail system and jet travel falls by the wayside because of carbon footprinting, we’ll be gathering. So, the convention business will continue.
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Regardless if anyone thinks of our city is or isn’t a tourist destination or whether or not we care about the convention center, the entirety of downtown has a stake in hotel room occupancy & the convention center one way or another. For example, more hotel rooms means larger weekday conventions, which means more diners and shoppers for local businesses. In turn, more diners and more shoppers means more/new business for Raleigh entrepreneurs and more options for downtown Raleigh’s residents.
More hotels downtown also means more rooms for the growing corporation scene downtown, which repeats the cycle mentioned in the paragraph above. It also strengthens Raleigh’s festivals. Additionally, Raleigh has peak visit days like college graduations and having more hotel rooms downtown means visibility to people from all corners of the state and the region from which the city’s colleges and universities draw students.
Oh, and more hotel rooms clustered for specific events in DT’s core can mean fewer cars necessary for those visitors!
for large event
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More residents means all of those things too, is my point.
Building on @dbearhugnc,'s comment, sure conventions are going to happen so might as well be here I guess. I guess some questions need to be sorted out like, does your city benefit more from resident spending in a downtown or visitor spending in a downtown? Step one for a CC mission I would say is to support the existing companies in the area, and attract new companies. Good mission. But luring in conventions not attached to a local company…how many of those do we get? A few cool ones for sure, like IBMA and the comicon stuff. Is building those extra hotel rooms and CC space worth going after that sort of stuff? I don’t know. I think the hesitancy of some of the recent hotel announcements provides some of that answer. The hotel clusters in a downtown are always the deadest areas I see and my lack of excitement for them is rooted in those experiences.
A city benefits when there are a variety of people spending money in it.
My point is that adding visitors expands retail, dining, and entertainment option beyond what residents alone can support. This provides residents more options and a better overall experience.
Hoteliers will also provide more tax revenues, not only from occupancy taxes, but property taxes as well.
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