By Eric Stock
BLOOMINGTON – A developer who wants to being a hotel to downtown Bloomington has presented a scaled-down plan that would seek any city money.
Jeff Giebelhausen is looking to build a $7 million low budget hotel where the Front ‘N Center building is now. The city council previously turned down a boutique hotel that called for city tax incentives. Bloomington mayor Tari Renner told WJBC’s Scott Laughlin this plan won’t work either.
PODCAST: Listen to Scott’s interview with Renner on WJBC.
“A low budget hotel on that location would not be consistent with our downtown plan and visioning because it would not be something that’s a major anchor that is called for in the downtown plan to help attract other private investment,” Renner said. “We don’t want a hotel in downtown Bloomington that has a reputation or gets a reputation of renting rooms by the hour.”
Giebelhausen presented the plan to city staff on Tuesday. Renner said since the city would not be contributing to the low-budget hotel, it would be harder to stop it from being built.
“We’ve got to protect taxpayers and we don’t really want just anything but we may be in an awkward position of not being able to prevent something from going there,” Renner said.
Renner added the city hasn’t given up on a downtown hotel. The city is waiting a final report that will detail the why a consultant feels the boutique hotel would be a bad deal for the city.
Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].
