Who knew a building — or four of five of them — could be so wicked?
I was amused, as was the audience at the Citizen-Times forum on growth Tuesday night, when hotelier John McKibbon referred to himself as “Dr. Evil,” the “evil developer” of hotels. While McKibbon, whose company built the Aloft Hotel, is erecting the AC Hotel downtown and has plans to transform the BBT Building into a super-swanky hotel, was clearly joking, some in the community really feel that way.
The deluge of hotels, particularly downtown, as well as the tax money they generate through the hotel room tax, played a key role in the recent City Council election, with residents sending a pretty clear message that they want more attention focused on locals — and the pace of growth reined in a bit.
For your scorecard, these hotels are slated to open downtown in 2016 or 2017:
•The 132-room AC Hotel across from the BBT Building.
•The 151-room Hilton Garden Inn at Charlotte and College streets.
•The 144-room Hyatt Place Asheville Downtown at Haywood Street and Montford Avenue.
•The 155-room Vandre Nouveau Hotel in the BBT Building.
•The 136-room Cambria Suites at Page and Battery Park.
In all, Buncombe County has 17 new hotels in the pipeline, but it’s those downtown skyscrapers that get folks really riled up. I solicited input from locals on Facebook, and here’s a taste of what I got:
“To invest in hotels instead of affordable housing is typical of the greed of our time,” said Pamela Kimmell. “Will they convert to housing when the bust comes? As long as council keeps OK’ing this, it will continue. There should be a law that all hotels must be built over their own parking garages, or must have parking lots on the outskirts and provide shuttle service. MUST! And stop building hotels. Where do they think their chambermaids will live… or park?”
“Downtown parking demand is at record levels,” said Bonnie Schley. “We need to focus on infrastructure and catch up with parking, public transportation, roads, bridges and affordable housing before we invite more people to the party.”
A few folks were positive about them, including Mary Netherton, who said they’re “good for Asheville.”
“It is great that people choose to come to this perfectly beautiful place,” she said. “They need places to stay a while, else they may take up residency and I don’t want that. Seems that all imports seek to change Asheville to be like where they came from; so I really rather they be nice visitors.”
I get what locals are saying. Our city is changing at a frenetic pace, and these new hotels will not only change the literal look of our mountain oasis, they’ll also bring thousands more tourists to clog the streets and drive at a torturously slow rate through parking decks. Of course, they also spend a lot of money while they’re here — an average of $128 a day per person — and that keeps a lot of locally owned or locally franchised downtown businesses open.
Tourism does produce a lot of jobs and sales taxes. McKibbon noted at the forum that 8,000 of the 21,000 jobs created since 2010 in the area are hospitality-related, and those folks might not be working otherwise.
The hotels also generate $11 million in property taxes for Buncombe County, and the difference in property values before and after some local hotels went up is pretty eye-popping.
Take the Indigo Hotel, built on Haywood Street on the former site of the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce. Before the hotel went in, the taxable value of the property was $1.6 million, after it soared to $16.6 million, according to the Buncombe County Tax Department.
The Aloft, on Biltmore Avenue, is a similar story, with a pre-hotel tax value of $888,600 and post-hotel value of $13.2 million.
I’ll also note that, judging by the Battery Park Apartments and the Vanderbilt Apartments, which used to be hotels, maybe all those hoteliers are really building future affordable housing for old folks.
Part of what’s driving the enmity toward hotels is the recent kerfuffle over the room tax, which hoteliers agreed to increase by 2 cents. The proceeds go to marketing and promotion, as well as to the Tourism Development Fund, which funds attractions and facilities that can bring people here for extended stays.
Councilman Gordon Smith says “it’s fine” that tourists like Asheville and help keep local businesses afloat. But while McKibbon stated his hotels pay living wages, that’s not always the case — the industry is notorious for a lot of jobs that don’t pay great.
“We’re angry with all these new hotels because there’s still not a commitment from the hotel industry to pay living wages, use local suppliers and give part of the occupancy tax back for the needs of the people who live here,” Smith said. “The people of Asheville are demanding that hoteliers put Asheville first. A healthy, sustainable tourism sector can be a positive thing, but what’s happening now is simply exploitation.”
Yikes!
Fellow Councilman Cecil Bothwell is on the same page, although he notes, “There’s nothing inherently good or bad about a hotel, though some like the Aloft and Indigo seem bereft of aesthetic charm….
“What really gets my goat is that the hoteliers have been telling council for years that there was absolutely no way to increase the room tax (with a small portion going to the city for infrastructure), because a higher room tax would drive away their customers,” Bothwell said. “But now that they are overbuilding rooms they used their political muscle to get an increase in the room tax so the Tourism Development Authority can advertise more, to fill the potentially empty rooms. And still nothing for the citizens of the city. They are only out for themselves.”
Double yikes! A goat was got!
I’ll note that getting a portion of the room tax monies dedicated to the city makes eminent sense in my mind, as these tourists double the city’s population on any given summer day and use the city’s roads, parking decks and crumbling sidewalks, and they impact police and fire services.
But having room tax dedicated to the city would require the General Assembly to change the Asheville room tax rules, and if you haven’t noticed, our state legislators just got done taking the city’s water system. I doubt they’re going to do anything to help the city, even if hoteliers say they want some of the tax to go to the city.
I think what most people want is a city we can all live in, as well as a place that tourists love to visit, in that order. It’s time to apply the brakes, put some pressure on for the room-tax bonanza to be directed away from promotion and into infrastructure even more, and push for those living wages.
People come here because we have such a strong sense of place — we’re a quirky little town with character to spare — but we’re in danger of becoming a place where tourists walk around staring at each other, dropping a buck in a busker’s basket and having a high-end meal locals can’t afford, and then returning to their generic looking skyscraper hotel.
Perhaps it is time to catch our breath.
This is the opinion of John Boyle. Contact him at 232-5847 or jboyle@citizen-times.com.
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