We probably will get a few more larger conventions and so some extra bucks floating around the city.

I doubt that when you add up the debt load and loss of putting that money to other better uses, it still won't pencil out.

If the Hyatt thought that they could build a hotel and have enough folks staying there to make a profit, wouldn't they be happy make that investment?

So we are building a hotel that will only be busy for a few weeks out of the year as city services continue to dwindle.

The PDC is like an out-of-control monster that has to continuously fabricate new ways to keep feeding itself.

Nice metaphor there, Mr. Grumpy!

Just counting (from the last time they tried shoving thru a hotel deal) -

- $4M to Schlesinger for land worth $500K and then sell it to Mortenson for $1
- Then a 0% interest loan for 48.2 years to Mortenson because "they really want to pay it off as soon as they can" a la Vestas
- No room taxes unlike every other hotel in Portland
- Probably some sort of rebate if they don't meet revenue targets for the next 50 years
- Fast track /waive any and every SDC and development (that's about 10% of the construction cost)fee
- Set up a specially contorted URD that looks like some weird cancer cell so we make an even bigger portion of Portland that won't be paying any increase in property taxes to schools (which means we get to pay even more).

Give me the over and under on this costing less than $100M buy the time we're done. PDC is way too big a honey pot to not do this.

I wonder if there are ANY board members, managers or staff who have ever googled?

"convention center hotel losing money"

Because the ease at which ANYONE can become familiar with how asinine the hotel idea is makes me wonder if they are all just a bunch of dishonest & deliberately stupid jackasses.

With the current economic and rebellion environment how does an agency like the PDC, TriMet or Clackamas County keep pushing their lunacy against the tsunami of public condemnation?

Is all of this some final lame duck-like pushing caused by worries the coming election will push humpty dumpty off the wall?

Even over in Vancouver their creep mayor Tim Leavitt is conniving to secure funding for light rail operation to substitute for what he anticipates will be denied by a November C-Tran vote.

There is nothing to low or any end to the local government chicanery. The scoundrels are perfectly content fighting the very people they were elected to represent.

They'll push because there's too much gravy to let slip away and the public, as outraged as they may be if asked, doesn't have enough time to spend squishing cockroaches. The guys running these agencies, the staffers, and everyone making a profit off of it have 24 hours a day to figure new ways to justify their current programs and expand their empires. Unless and until the general public adopts an attitude that there are some (or many) things that these agencies shouldn't do, no matter how nice it sounds or "beneficial" it would be, the whole mess will continue.

Both " dishonest and diliberately stupid jackasses" pretty much describes the PDC though out its history and it virtually all its developments.

Good luck with this folks. Portland's convention season isn't that long- May through September, maybe October. I worked in the convention industry for many years and let's just say we didn't have many events in Chicago in February, or Orlando in August. That hotel will be a ghost town a good chunk of the year. The fact that no one is on the streets with torches and pitch forks is amazing to me.

Monitoring the East Coast Port debacle and the recent Port of Portland mess, I came across this tidbit that explained a lot to me, from China no less.

http://thediplomat.com/2012/09/10/are-chinese-banks-hiding-the-mother-of-all-debt-bombs/

Has the Nines resumed payment on their mortgage loan the PDC gave them?

Hah hah hah! The Nines is under completed projects on the PDC's website so that means it's done. Time to move on to the new hotel. Why are you looking backwards instead of forwards?

In other news, United Way is giving an award dinner for Eric Hoffman (of Hoffman Construction) and his wife at the Nines on Thursday.

"exemplify the best of Portland’s generosity and philanthropy, and provide an inspiration for all of us to invest, thoughtfully and generously, in helping those most in need" - from the PBJ article.

Who says irony is dead?

I used to think the people pushing this were just stupid. They've had the truth fed to them, and gone on impervious, too many times now for that to be true. The inescapable conclusion is that it is completely cynical. Everybody involved will get their piece one way or another, and there will be no consequences to anybody for the inevitable failure. So, why worry?

What is so ludicrous about a convention hotel in Portland is that many of the largest conventions are so big that only a few cities like Las Vegas and Orlando have the facilities and hotel rooms available to hold them.
And given the current economy, many potential business owners are foregoing annual convention attendance until the economy improves.