So while Speaker Harwood wasn’t finding time for URI president Carothers, the legislature — at the last minute — was seriously considering funding another downtown hotel, this one for old time friend, former state Rep. Vincent Mesolella.
Mesolella and team were asking for millions in state aid to build an all-suites hotel on the site of the Fogarty Building, across from the Convention and Civic Centers.
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While we agree that more hotel rooms are needed to help the Convention Center attract even more meetings, we reject the notion that the state needs to again get into the hotel business. As we recall, Rhode Island became the first state in the nation to enter the hotel business when the Westin became part of the Convention Center project. And we haven’t seen a flood of other states following our lead.
Fortunately the bill didn’t win final approval from the legislature. However, it will be reviewed over the next few months, maybe too far away from the public spotlight. What we hope gets reviewed by this group of developers is how they can complete their project without financial help from the state.
We think it’s bad business and bad government for the state to be involved in financing hotels. If the state helps fund this hotel, why not the others planned around the Capital Center, at the site of the current police station, or for that matter in communities around Rhode Island?
There are a number of developers who have not approached the state for financing, confident enough in their projects that they will become profitable. Or they are finding a combination that might include offices, shops and condominiums along with a hotel that attract private financing, and make these multi-purpose properties both attractive and potentially profitable.
