Washington hotel will build later than planned

WASHINGTON — City officials have extended a building agreement with developers for a hotel planned in eastern Washington, signaling an almost one-year delay in the major construction project’s timeline.

A development agreement approved by the city council in December authorized several years of property tax breaks for the hotel totaling $1.8 million, provided developers could meet certain deadlines, the first of them being the acquisition of all finances and finalization of a construction plan by March 31, 2024. When that target wasn’t met, officials amended the agreement, extending it to September. Tuesday night’s meeting pushed it back further to March 1, 2025.

Washington Hotel Group Co-Founder Dave Waite said of the roughly 30,000 square foot, 54-room planned building faced delays as he and business partner Andy Drahota focused on completion of a major upstairs renovation at the Washington Evening Journal Building, an unrelated project which has also received monetary support from the city in the form of a $25,000 grant, and has faced its own scheduling setbacks but is now nearly complete.

He also attributed delays to a lack of available local contractors, and a handful of likely investors who expressed support for the hotel, but had not yet put their money on it.

“It’s been a longer road than I thought it was going to be,” Waite said. “We’ve put out a couple of bid requests and they’ve been slow coming back … and we haven’t really been able to call people back on a regular basis because we’ve been busy with the other project.”

Waite told officials he was still confident the hotel project would come together, despite the shifting time tables. He pointed out that the city wouldn’t lose any money in the wait, since municipal support for the hotel came in the form of a tax rebate, not a grant or cash payment.

“I’m a fate kind of guy, things happen in the right time at the right place, this will come together and it’ll be just fine,” he said.

The roll-call vote to extend the deadline was unanimous, but came with long pauses from some council members before voicing their positions. While decision-makers all said they were enthusiastic about the project’s expected economic impact, they said they worried even the new timeline was unrealistic.

Some even jokingly suggested the developer should hire contractors to simply “move some dirt around” on the land, or place a sign advertising its future as a hotel, to demonstrate progress of some kind.

“Just listening to you, I don’t know how you could be ready by next spring,” Council Member Elaine Moore said. “Truthfully, I don’t know that even six months will be enough, (knowing) what needs to be done to break ground, which concerns me.”

While the original development agreement with Washington Hotel Group was approved in December, excitement about the project dates back further than that.

Advocates have called the business an economic boon for Washington, with facilities that would bring people into town, pour roughly $360,000 into the local labor market, and indirectly generate around a million dollars worth of economic activity per year.

It’s not the only major business plan to receive tax rebates in recent years. The list of Washington’s tax increment financing-depending developments includes a $390,000 rebate for construction at Bazooka Farmstar, $100,000 for a stormwater retention area at Iowa Renewable Energy, and $450,000 for development of the Oakwood subdivision, among others.

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com