Eureka Reporter - 11/25/2005
Hostel Still Hopes for Waterfront Bid
by Shane Mizer
Debates over the Hampton Harbor Inn & Suites proposal are heating
up.
“I have watched with great frustration while the hostel project
supporters have used a number of questionable means to attempt to undermine
our project,” Hampton Harbor Inn developer Greg Pierson said. “We
have heard of many of these attacks but have chosen to have our proposal
stand on its own merits.”
On Dec. 6 the Eureka City Council will have an opportunity to decide
whether to grant the Hampton Harbor Inn developers’ Pierson
and Larry Debeni an exclusive right to negotiate the development
of a Waterfront parcel adjacent to the Wharfinger Building.
The Hampton Harbor Inn project was designed with possible future tenant
the Hilton Hotels Corporation in mind.
In anticipation of the upcoming vote, the progressive political action
committee Local Solutions PAC launched an e-mail campaign last weekend
to garner public support against the Hampton Harbor Inn project.
“Unless urgent action is taken immediately, the pro-development
forces on the Eureka City Council will soon grant an exclusive right
to negotiate to a group of wealthy individuals planning to build a bland
70-room corporate franchise hotel/motel on a beautiful three-acre Waterfront
site ... ” the e-mail stated.
The Redevelopment Advisory Board has already voted twice on the matter
due to alleged conflict of interests that were pointed out after the
first vote by former RAB member Charlene Cutler-Ploss, who opposed the
Hampton Harbor Inn project both times.
In the RAB’s most recent vote, the decision to forward the
Hampton Harbor Inn project proposal to the City Council was made
by a 3-2 vote cast by RAB members Lance Madsen, Charlotte MacDonald
and Jeff Smith. Cutler-Ploss and Robert Fasic represent the two votes
cast in opposition to the idea.
According to Madsen, the decision to vote in favor of the inn was based
on two specific criteria that the RAB uses to evaluate project proposals,
which include the economic strength of the project and how much blight
it would remove.
“If you look at the financial sides, the environmental project
has very little money invested,” Madsen said. “I don’t
recall any personal monies; everything was ‘we’re going to
apply for grants.’”
Cutler-Ploss declined to comment on the reasons she opposed the project,
and Fasic did not return calls by deadline.
The “environmental project” that competed against the Hampton
Harbor Inn was the Humboldt Bay Environmental Technology Hostel & Sustainable
Living Center, led by the Center for Environmental Economic Development.
CEED project director Lew Litsky, a past president of the national
board of directors for Hostelling International, defended his proposal
by claiming that CEED’s $50,000 feasibility study, which was
awarded through a grant from the Ford Foundation, actually underrepresented
the value of his project to the community in his original proposal.
Since being rejected by RAB, Litsky discovered the flaw in his proposal
from new information he received at the Humboldt County Convention Center
and Visitors Bureau regarding average hotel occupancy rates.
“They said the occupancy rate was at a 59.6 percent average in
2004,” Litsky said. “I realized my numbers were too low.
... So when I redid them using the 59 percent occupancy rate I came up
with a half-million more than I originally projected in the first three
years. So we’re in good shape.”
City Councilmembers Jeff Leonard and Mike Jones declined to state
which way they’re leaning on the Hampton Inn project, although Jones
said he’s received a dozen calls since Local Solutions encouraged
opponents of the inn to voice their opinions to members of the City
Council.
Jones said he’s also had a couple of calls from supporters
of the Hampton Harbor Inn.
A claim in the Local Solutions PAC e-mail that the Waterfront parcel
represents one of the last remaining Waterfront sites was discredited
by City Manager David Tyson.
“There are a number of Waterfront properties owned by the city,
including the parcel that was once planned for Seaport Village and a
14-acre site by the Adorni Center,” Tyson said.
Litsky will give a presentation to the City Council on Dec. 6 with regard
to his proposal and will conduct a public information meeting about the
Humboldt Bay Environmental Technology Center at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday
at the Red Lion Hotel in Eureka.
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