Vacancy

"Not one of the 16 new convention-size 'headquarters' hotels that opened in Texas since 1981 has ever generated a significant demand increase for hotel rooms in any market," the study said in part. "...Unfortunately, some municipalities falsely believe that a major new hotel is a solution for the lack of visitor growth and economic health of the downtown area."

Despite the study's apparent findings, proponents say it failed to look at the impact of hotels that were physically attached to convention centers like the proposed Dallas hotel would be. Walker says the distinction is dubious.

"There's no difference between having an attached building than it is having a 1,000-room hotel open a block away or next door. If you have a convention of 20,000 people, they are not going to all stay at that hotel anyway even if it is all attached," he says.

Despite what would appear to be a significant downside to the hotel proposal, representatives of the watchdog groups say their study has been disregarded because it disagrees with what hotel proponents want. They say it's no coincidence that WFAA-Channel 8 and The Dallas Morning News ignored the news conference announcing the study. The Dallas Morning News, which has editorialized in favor of the hotel several times, also ignored requests that letters to the editor on the subject be published, says Tara Ross, spokesperson for the Dallas Taxpayers Rights Coalition, the second watchdog group that helped pay for the study.

The Belo Corp., which owns WFAA and The Dallas Morning News, owns property in the vicinity of the proposed hotel. In addition, Robert Decherd, Belo chairman, is also chairman of the "Inside the Loop" committee that is boosting the hotel among other ideas for downtown. Ross says she does not want to "bad-mouth" The Dallas Morning News but says she would have "hoped more interest would have been shown."

"I will note that The Dallas Morning News has written some editorials in favor of the convention center hotel, and we did give them a copy of everything we gave everybody else, and they failed to show up at the press conference or to even write on this yet."

The newspaper subsequently reported that hotel proponents believed the study did not address the Dallas idea. Walker, whose company or one of its officials has been quoted more than a half-dozen times by The Dallas Morning News for a variety of projects since the mid-1990s, is more direct about the fact that the paper has ignored the study's findings.

"To do it the way they are doing it, just ignoring it without actually reading the study, that just shows you how little interest they have in actually having an open dialogue on the issue," he says.

Frank Naboulsi, general manager of the Fairmont Hotel, says study or not, this is a bad time to add hotel rooms.

"At this point I think it would be a mistake for us to create more competition when we have 12,000 room nights within the downtown and the suburbs of downtown core that could be accommodated for large conventions," he says. "I believe this hotel is not needed at this point."