City Wants to Add to Convention Center Editorial by Jon A
3100 ANDERSON AVE, MANHATTAN, KS 66503 SALES: (888) 421-1388 SERVICE: (888) 475-5608 PARTS: (366) 931-0437 THE AMERICAN FLAG IS NOT JUST A SYMBOL 30 VOLUME 26, NUMBER 21 An Award Winning Weekly Newspaper Thursday, October 19, 2017 City Wants To Add To Convention Center Editorial By Jon A. Brake At Tuesday night’s Manhat- tan City Commission Meeting the Convention and Visitors Bureau gave a report to the Commission that recommends adding to the Manhattan Con- vention Center on 4th Street in Downtown Manhattan. As reported in the Free Press the City of Manhattan does not own the Convention Center. They deeded the property over to the Hilton Garden Inn Hold- ing Company several years ago. Hilton Garden Inn or the Holding pays $100,000 a year for 20-years. The City built the Center in 2009 - 10 for a little more than $10 million. Without owning the property, the City is still making payments of $700,000 Hilton Garden Inn per year and will until 2034. Manhattan Here is what a Memo from February 11, 2014 said: “On January 19, 2010, the City Commission approved Or- dinance No. 6810 issuing gen- Manhattan eral obligation home rule Convention economic development bonds Center in an amount of $9.5 million in budgeted construction costs, not including additional interest costs and costs of issuance. (Note: Final bond issuance was City of Manhattan in the amount of $10,055,000).” Parking Garage The Memo went on to say: “In addition, the agreement with HCW Development in- cluded an annual repayment of $100,000 which also would be used to reduce the annual pay- ment of principal and interest once the conference center gen- eral obligation bonds had been “The City, CVB, and HCW pitality Group to evaluate the They build a $10 million Con- sity (see story below.
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