Century Plaza / Convention Hotel rumoring (archive)

[Chauncey87]

How did this become $300 million? Where does it say this? For that kind of cash you could buy 428 Enzo 2013 Ferraris.
Or 1,003,344 Lego Enzo Ferraris.

[Nick]

It's like sixty million five dollar footlongs!

[MS3]

300 mil isn't for a 1000 room hotel. 300 mil is for a 2000 room hotel. Which would probably be 1100 feet tall on this parcel. Which is also about how many more hotel rooms Minneapolis needs to compared to cities of their size.

[VAStationDude]

Why throw huge sums of money at a shrinking convention industry and at the same time undermine investments by private hotel owners? Frankly throwing the might of Hennepin County and Minneapolis behind a huge competitor to the existing hotels is unfair.

[John]

The 50 story convention hotel in Austin is going to cost 350 million dollars. The one in Houston of similar cost. Most other large hotels I've seen on Skyscrapercity always cost well into the hundreds of millions. No big surprise that the one here would be 300 million.
As far as the developer getting some kind of subsidy , I can't imagine they won't try. My prediction is all the politically ambitious liberals will protest loudly (as they always do and have for the 35 years I've lived here), but they will get the subsidy anyways. That's life in the big city.

[Suburban Outcast]

I looked up some examples of skyscrapers and supertalls to analyze and compare the construction costs vs. the overall height. The Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago cost around $850 million to build and is 1,170 ft high (not including the spire) with 98 floors, but a nearby tower called Aqua (859 ft tall with 86 floors) cost about $300 million. While the Trump Tower is probably quite lavish (I'm sure Aqua is upscale as well) which probably hiked up construction costs, but since it is a $550 million difference in construction costs I assuming $300 million might be too cheap for a supertall as the type of structural system needed for one might have too expensive of a cost-per-floor ratio. Regardless, it would be still really tall for the Minneapolis skyline if it gets built. Maybe this infographic could be of some use in this discussion:

(Source made by Luthador on Wikipedia)

[TWA]

^^ is it cheaper because the majority of the building is condos? I would imagine all the finishings can be passed on to the owner to decide/supply/install and would cut down on the cost to the developer..?

[nasa35]

I've actually heard, by the way, that the real dollar amount might be quite a bit closer to 400,000,000

Edit: Snipped for terribleness.

[m b p]

I'm all about height. But... a tower there, possibly 1000 feet or more, would look so out of place.

[bapster2006]

If that hotel is 1,000 feet, the next happy hour after the announcement is on me.

I think my checking account will be safe!

[nasa35]

I'm all about height. But... a tower there, possibly 1000 feet or more, would look so out of place.

The tallest I've heard mentioned is 700 feet.

[John]

I'm all about height. But... a tower there, possibly 1000 feet or more, would look so out of place.

The tallest I've heard mentioned is 700 feet.

The 700 foot range sounds about right at its estimated cost. It certainly would have quite an impact on the skyline, yet it wouldn't be overwhelming.

[min-chi-cbus]

Perfect, we'll have one of those.

[Minneboy]

700 feet on the far end of downtown would be huge and coming NB from 35W South would overshadow everything

[Viktor Vaughn]

I'm not anti-government; I think government has a responsibility to step in when the market fails. However, one thing that the market does well is build luxury hotels. Any justifications I've heard to publically subsidize a massive hotel are very weak. This subsidy will serve to undermine private investment. You'd think we'd learn after being burned by so many of these mega-projects...

[John]

700 feet on the far end of downtown would be huge and coming NB from 35W South would overshadow everything

Wonderful!

[writruth]

An argument could be made that Minneapolis and Hennepin County have vested interests in subsidizing a convention hotel tower in downtown Minneapolis in order to capture the additional tax revenue generated by future mega-events that will likely take place, including a Super Bowl, NCAA Basketball Final Four, and possible national political convention.

By building more rooms inside the city/county, the lodging taxes and bar/restaurant taxes would remain in the City/County, as opposed to flowing to St. Paul, Bloomington and other neighboring municipalities. The argument being, if you can get travelers to stay downtown, near their convention, or stadium event, they are more inclined to also drink and eat at downtown restaurants and bars and buy goods at downtown shops. It's my guess The City and Hennepin County will factor these multiplier effects into any decision to subsidize a future convention hotel.

[mattaudio]

How many mega events does it take to recoup $100 million in subsidy? A mega number of mega events. These things never actually capture enough value to cover the subsidy.

[gahwi003]

Well said! The way I see it, is the private sector wouldn't build a 1000+ room hotel because they won't see any profit besides the hotel itself. Whereas the city/county will receive additional money due to more tax revenue. Makes sense to me.

[Suburban Outcast]

^^ is it cheaper because the majority of the building is condos? I would imagine all the finishings can be passed on to the owner to decide/supply/install and would cut down on the cost to the developer..?

Could be, I just compared the overall costs that I found on Google with only looking at new-ish Chicago skyscrapers, so there are probably many more factors that go into the overall cost. It's just since it's a $550 million difference, that gives me the assumption that structural systems for supertalls are really expensive compared to ones that can support skyscrapers around 700-900 ft. A similar skyscraper in the Loop that is similar to Aqua in height (The Legacy at Millennium Park) cost around $280 million, so if the Convention Center hotel is around 700 feet tall, $300 million sounds correct for a cost given it will probably be somewhat upscale, and an all-hotel building might be more expensive to build compared to a mixed-use building given the finishings in residential units could be passed on to someone else.

I wonder who would probably be the tenant for this hotel? Would it also be mostly mid-priced rooms then maybe upscale hotel units on the top floors?