Hotels downtown

Issues concerning Downtown as described by the Downtown Council. River to 31st Street, I-35 to Bruce R. Watkins.
davetodd
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Hotels downtown

Post by davetodd »

Are these the only hotels in downtown right now?
If not... I only want a listing of hotels in the IMMEDIATE downtown/crown Plaza area...not on the outskirts of downtown.

COMFORT INN

DOUBLETREE HOTEL - DOWNTOWN

HISTORIC SUITES OF AMERICA

HOTEL PHILLIPS

HOTEL SAVOY

HYATT REGENCY CROWN CENTER

MARRIOTT - DOWNTOWN

WESTIN CROWN CENTER HOTEL
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KCPowercat
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Post by KCPowercat »

As reported by the CVB. These would be hotels they consider good enough for visitors, hence things like the Midwest hotel not listed.


within 2 blocks of bartle:

Doubletree
Holiday Inn (it's not a H.I. anymore but not sure what it is)
Hotel Phillips
Marriott
Coming in 04-05: Hotel President

Downtown: within 12 blocks

Fairfield Inn - Union Hill
Historics Suites
Hotel Savoy
Hyatt
Residence - Union Hill
Super 8
Westin

Westport/Plaza - 10 minutes

Embassy Suites
Fairmont
4 Points
Hampton Inn
Holiday Inn - Westport
Homestead Suites
Marriott Plaza
Quaterage
Plaza Hotel @ Westport
Raphael
Residence Inn - Plaza
Rodeway Inn
Sheraton Suites
Coming in 04-05: Courtyard on the Plaza
Last edited by KCPowercat on Sun Feb 15, 2004 3:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by SonicBoi »

KC wrote:Coming in 04-05: Hotel Phillips
I'm lost. :-k U mean President? Or did I miss somthing?
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Post by KCDevin »

no, remember, Hotel President is now becoming lofts
Hotel Phillips, is uh... I can't remember but here:
http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=121798
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Post by trailerkid »

Hotel President is still under development to become a Hilton...
http://www.kcskyscrapers.com/kcforum/vi ... .php?t=375

I think that was what CVB meant with the coming in '05. The West Edge project on the Plaza also includes a boutique hotel.
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Post by KCPowercat »

My bad, typed it wrong. Actually the CVB list I have didn't have the President or Courtyard marriott, I added those.
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Post by SonicBoi »

KCDevin wrote:no, remember, Hotel President is now becoming lofts
Hotel Phillips, is uh... I can't remember but here:
http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=121798
GAA! I have got to have a better pic of that somewhere.
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Post by bahua »

Oh no! An avid civic driver!
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Post by SonicBoi »

bahua wrote:Oh no! An avid civic driver!
LOL. That is my siggy on a civic forum. I took the pix and blended them together. I've only had my Civic sence November. The gas milage is awsome!
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Post by davetodd »

So you mean to tell me that we only have 8 (maybe 9) hotels in downtown right now?
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Post by trailerkid »

There aren't that many more hotels on the Plaza than downtown. And you can make the assumption that right now the Plaza is the most desirable neighborhood in the city. Besides, we're not talking about Days Inn downtown, the Marriott has over 900 rooms and 40 suites...that's huge.
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Post by KCPowercat »

dtodd....how many hotels/rooms do you think there should be?

Right now there are 1774 rooms within 2 blocks and 1,789 within downtown (31st to the river)

I think we could handle one more convention type hotel with the industry picks up...right now downtown hotel occupancy rate isn't very good....50-60%. CVB needs to get more big events in here.
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davetodd
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Post by davetodd »

"right now downtown hotel occupancy rate isn't very good....50-60%"

I think that we need to address the issue of WHY our few hotels Downtown and our few hotels in The Plaza are at that low rate.

"dtodd....how many hotels/rooms do you think there should be? "

Actually it isn't about how many hotel rooms I think there should be, it is about filling the hotels we have now and getting newer construction and more hotels in this city to entice and attract, not only conventions, but visitors too.
The reason I emphasize why "my" idea and "concept" of how many hotels there should be is irrelevant, BUT here are some BIG reasons why...

----

William Harsh, Retired VP Hallmark
Wrote this article years back and KC still has not achieved any new hotels since this article was written. It addresses the facts that KC is not a "convention city" because of issues of hotels, image and lack of tourism.
http://www.umkc.edu/whmckc/PUBLICATIONS ... -27-87.pdf

----

January 5, 2004 (just last month).
Kansas City - The Business Journal

"With the downtown hotel market suffering through its lowest occupancy levels in a decade, Udris said the city doesn't need more rooms right now"

This article says also that The President's building reopening may be a long drawn out "political" development before renovations get approved.
Yet, the article does give a little positive to saying that projects like H&R may entice some new TIF money for projects ONLY IF they are warranted.

---

Yet KC's lack of conventions and tourism is not just due to the lack of an enticing downtown and lack of hotels, it also has the very large issue of transportation to KC:

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascit ... 238912.htm

Service at KCI since November 2003, down 30%.
"Reconnecting America's report also showed Kansas City
International Airport losing more than 30 percent of
its flights, dropping from 1,972 to 1,376 weekly
flights."
Aviation Article.[/url]
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Post by FangKC »

About the statement that KC isn't considered a convention city, that wasn't always true. The years 1919 to 1931 were considered the heyday of downtown hotels in KC, which at that time held the distinction of being the third largest convention city in the country.

Currently, there are four major hotels operating in the downtown business district (Phillips, Marriott, Holiday Inn Citi Centre, and Doubletree). They account for 1,774 hotel rooms. In 1929, downtown had almost 10,000 hotel rooms within the central business district.*

The old convention hall was much smaller then--about one-fourth the size of Bartle Hall. Municipal Auditorium didn't exist then either. It wasn't built until later (1934). The metro population was much smaller as well.

Despite the fact that Kansas City wasn't the third largest city in the country in 1929, it was the third largest convention city in the nation (after New York and Chicago).

If one includes Historic Suites with the other major downtown hotels, there are currently 1874 rooms available within walking distance of the convention center. Marriott controls over half of all downtown hotel rooms.

Broken down, here is the current stock of hotel rooms in the central business district:

Marriott Hotel - 983 rooms (includes Muehlebach)
Doubletree Hotel - 388 rooms
Phillips Hotel - 217 rooms
Holiday Inn Citi Centre - 186 rooms
Historic Suites - 100 rooms

Total: 1874

Kansas City has gone from having almost 10,000 hotel rooms within the central business district to less than 2,000--one fifth of what it had at one time.

If one includes Crown Center as downtown, that adds an additional 1460 rooms.

Hyatt Regency Crown Center - 731 rooms
Westin Crowne Center - 729 rooms

Total CBD and CC: 3334 rooms

Even if one includes the present hotel rooms in Crown Center (which didn't even exist in 1929) with the Central Business District, there are only one third the number of rooms there once were--a drop of approximately 66 percent. Now keep in mind that our current convention center is about four times the size of the convention hall that existed in 1929.

The transportation issue does make a difference. In 1929, most travel was done by train. Union Station was a short distance away from the downtown hotels. And when air travel started to surpass rail, the downtown airport was still close.

Since many of our conventioneers come into the city through KCI, the transportation problem plays a big role in our appeal to convention planners. I've always thought that if there is mass transit here, it first must connect KCI to downtown before anywhere else. It made a huge difference when Atlanta put a train from their airport to downtown.

* From the book "Saturday Matinee in Olde KC," by Chris Wilborn.
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Post by JerseyGuy »

I had a good conversation with an individual who use to work at Bartle Hall for many years and she told me that one of the reason's why they couldn't attract large association's conventions was due to the fact that there are a limited amount of hotel rooms. She told me that they had to have people in hotels all over the burbs in order to handle the volume of people. I would assume transportation to and from the hotels was an issue as well.

I use to work at conventions in many cities and I can understand that there is a need for hotels closer to Bartle Hall in order to bring in the large-scale conventions. There are a lot of things that can go wrong for conventions, but having angry attendee's because they are so spread out or couldn't find a room is a big one.

Now, which came first the chicken or the egg? Hotels need people to fill up their rooms and Bartle Hall needs the rooms in order to bring in the people. Any suggestions on how other cities have done this?

BTW, NYC has an issue with this as well. Their convention hall is in an area that few people go to and hence has very few hotels in the area as well as retail shops and no subway for transportation.
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Post by GRID »

There are plenty of hotel rooms in the core and there are plenty more in the suburbs for very large conventions. (most large conventions don't even fill up Downtown rooms let alone Crown Center, Plaza and the suburbs.

KC has nearly 30,000 hotel rooms, plenty for a midsized town. Not that another 1000 room convention hotel wouldn't hurt, but it's not the problem either.

KC needs the entertainment district, arena, PAC, BRT etc and a nice clean, vibrant downtown to lure conventions.
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Post by FangKC »

JerseyGuy: Since my last post, the city has lost another hotel. Citi-Center Hotel on Wyandotte St. closed last month. That was a loss of 180 rooms. Hopefully, that hotel will be sold to a party willing to renovate and reopen it.
One would hope that after Bartle Hall is expanded again in the future, and after the new ballroom is built, that more hotels will be built and opened in the downtown business district. I don't think any hotel chain, or investors, will do so until after that is accomplished.
I lived in NYC for 10 years, so I'm aware of the problems with the Javits Convention Center. The closest hotel if I recall is the New Yorker Hotel, which is owned by the Moonies. It's not the greatest place to stay either. That new hotel on W. 42nd is not too far away either--the one across from the Port Authority Bus Terminal that has the mega-theater complex in its base. People do expect to take cabs to Javits--as they do to most destinations while visiting NYC. Some of the problems with Javit's will be corrected if the new Jets stadium is built next door, and the No. 7 subway line is extended.
People don't mind being spread around Manhattan as much because there is so much street activity and things to do. The problem with visiting conventioneers being spread around Kansas City is that there is little to do at most of the hotels--unless it is located in the CC Plaza.
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Post by JerseyGuy »

GRID wrote:KC needs the entertainment district, arena, PAC, BRT etc and a nice clean, vibrant downtown to lure conventions.

Don't get me wrong Grid. I totally agree with you on your last statement about the PAC, KC LIVE, MAX, ect. In fact many of those projects are some of the reasons why I decided to move out here.

However, the person I spoke with was saying that many of the hotel rooms are so far way to attract the larger association conventions. I am most familiar with SHRM, which attracts at a minimum 8000 attendees and in fact there was a stat that stated that they actually attract 10,000 - 12,000 attendees to their conventions.

What I meant to say is that conventioneers usually like to stay in reasonable distance to a convention center. I usually tried to get rooms at the closest hotel in order to get to the convention quickly and then back to my room just as quick to change and go out for the night.
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Post by JerseyGuy »

FANGKC, where did you live in NYC? I worked there for about five years and lived in the Chelsea area for 1 year before moving out.

You are right about the fact that the Jets stadium will be helpful to the area and hopefully they will extend the 7 line to the Javits Convention Center. I personally don’t like the area that much since I worked a few blocks away for the last two years I was in NYC.
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Post by trailerkid »

From The Star today...
[quote]Better yet, Marvel is forecasting modest growth this year and next that could return the industry to its historic occupancy levels in the 60 percent-plus range.

“It's still a little prematureâ€
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