Onondaga County seeks proposals for new downtown hotel

County lawmakers approve hotel initiative                                                                    

SYRACUSE — Onondaga County will soon issue a request-for-proposals (RFP) to the private sector build a convention-center hotel on a county-owned parking lot just east of the Everson Museum of Art in downtown Syracuse. A spokesman for the office of Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon on July 9 told CNYBJ in an email that the county will issue the RFP in a few weeks. The Onondaga County Legislature on July 2 voted to approve a hotel initiative that the county executive had sent to lawmakers, he added. That initiative will offer grants ranging from $50,000 to $750,000 to developers to help in closing funding gaps in new hotel construction and/or incentivize existing hotels to add rooms to their current hotel stock. McMahon on June 4 discussed both the RFP and the hotel initiative on the county-owned parking lot where a developer would build the future convention-center hotel. Danny Liedka, executive director of Visit Syracuse, tipped his cap to Onondaga County leaders for the effort to improve the area’s hotel situation. “Instead of waiting for this problem to really take hold, they’ve been aggressive in being out in front of it,” Liedka said in speaking at the same June 4 event. “There’s no lack of interest here; it’s the interest rates that are causing the delay, and I do believe this incentive can help bridge that gap for these developers.” Onondaga County and Syracuse have really made “incredible strides” in hotel occupancy as well as competitiveness with its Thruway neighbors. “Now, we’re on par with them, so let’s not give ground back,” Liedka said. “The way we do give ground back is without hotels but our county executive and our legislature are stepping up to the plate to make sure that we don’t go backwards. We continue to go forwards and take advantage of the momentum.” McMahon also noted the county had worked with Visit Syracuse and Syracuse University to get the NCAA men’s basketball tournament to return to the JMA Wireless Dome, but the lack of hotels prevented that from happening.

Hotel RFP

In his June 5 remarks, McMahon said the county hopes to issue the RFP within 60 days to developers both in New York and across the country. The county will form an RFP committee to review the responses when they come forward. “For years, we’ve heard from Visit Syracuse and our team at [ASM Global] about the need for connectivity with our convention center and a hotel. The Hotel Syracuse, now the [Marriott Syracuse Downtown] is a jewel in our community and helped fill that void,” McMahon said in his remarks. But he also noted that due to the lack of hotel-room inventory, it’s “very difficult” for the convention center to book out any business and compete for conventions when you have a lack of inventory.

Hotel initiative

The proposal for the Onondaga County Hotel Initiative would use $4 million from the room-occupancy tax fund balance, McMahon said. Besides helping the close funding construction funding gaps and helping existing hotels add rooms, the grant program could also help developers focused on adaptive reuse projects of old buildings with “different potential,” he added. “Criteria will be established to grade each proposal, including but not limited to, the type of hotel and most importantly, how quickly it will come online and obviously looking at locations of regional significance as well,” the county executive said. Onondaga County Community Development will operate the Onondaga County Hotel Initiative and will make funding awards “on a rolling basis.” Developers will submit documentation showing they have a viable project, financing in place, and identifying the project’s funding gap. “We don’t know how successful this will be. I know that many of us, including myself, think that this will be a start to potentially a second phase of this type of funding, but we know we need rooms. We need them now. We need to incentivize to get projects going not 24 months from now but, quite frankly, right now,” McMahon contended.