As the old Walsh Hotel finally comes tumbling down this week, the Alamosa City Council will vote on an incentive package for a new hotel development on the same block that involves swapping properties with developer Manish Patel.
The city council will take up the proposed agreement with Patel during its meeting Wednesday and look to move ahead on a downtown hotel that both the city and Patel have been working toward since 2019.
The meeting is one of the most consequential of the city council’s 2023 sessions. In addition to the downtown hotel package, city council will vote on hiking resident utility rates by 5 percent in each of the next five years as well adopt a $21.5 million 2024 operating budgetthat includes increases in city employee pay scales.
Patel is part of an investment group that owns a variety of hotel and restaurant properties in the San Luis Valley and Colorado. Locally, Patel operates the IHOP restaurant, among other eateries, and the Comfort Inn. The investment group also operates the Sand Dunes Motel.
The proposed hotel incentive package involves swapping three taxpayer-owned properties (45,000 square feet) for four private properties (18,750 square feet), the responsibility for Patel to construct a public parking lot, the city waiving the building permit fee and tap fees, and the city reimbursing the developer for the construction of the public parking lot and third-party plan review fees from the sales tax collected from the new hotel.
City Manager Heather Sanchez will close the deal, with the city believing the economic impact of a downtown hotel offsets the expenses. Alamosa believes that the first year impact that includes construction and operation will be around $21.9 million. Following years, the direct economic impact is estimated at $11.9 million and the total estimated impact is $20.2 million.
The hotel development will stretch from Sixth Street and San Juan to State Avenue. The public parking lot will be on the east side of State Avenue.
In addition to the hotel development around Sixth and San Juan, Boys & Clubs of the San Luis Valley recently purchased property on the corner of San Juan and Sixth Street where it has created The Hub for nonprofit organizations to utilize for office space and other features. This episode of The Valley Pod, a podcast produced by Alamosa Citizen, features Boys & Girls Clubs Executive Director Aaron Miltenberger explaining more about The Hub and its influence on downtown Alamosa.
Source: https://www.alamosacitizen.com/hotel-development-deal-utility-rates-employee-pay-on-the-agenda/
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