Although voters in Vail approved taxes for a new conference center three years ago, this Tuesday they’ll be solicited for more to make up for an embarrassing cost underestimate in a town where the unofficial motto is: “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.”
After the first measure to raise sales and lodging taxes in 2002 passed by a scant 50 votes, officials planning the new center came to the unpleasant realization that $45 million just doesn’t go as far as it used to.
“There’s certainly a cost difference (from) 2002,” said Russell Forrest, the town’s community development director. “Just in the last six months … we’ve seen anywhere from a 25 to 35 percent increase in construction costs. Some of it is labor, and some of it is material escalation.”
Proponents of the additional lodging tax of 1.5 percent contend that a conference center would bring in $34 million annually in additional revenues, filtering through local businesses such as hotels and restaurants and supporting a greater year- round economy in the ski burg.
“Since 1999, over 130 groups representing about 100,000 attendees have inquired about holding their conferences in Vail that are turned away by lack of space and are going elsewhere,” said Sean Walsh, campaign manager for Citizens for Vail’s Future, a group supported chiefly by the Vail Valley Chamber and Tourism Bureau and major hotels.
Opponents of the measure counter that the center will further strain tourists who already pay an 11.8 percent lodging tax; that it will require a public subsidy of about $1 million annually; and that expectations of attracting large conventions – like the original cost projections – are overly optimistic.
“A lot of us in Vail don’t think we want those large, large conventions, anyway,” said Dr. Tom Steinberg, a longtime community activist, former member of the Town Council and an opponent of the measure. “I think we’re better off with 100 doctors or 500 lawyers at a time.”
Groups that size, he said, can be hosted at existing facilities, such as the conference center at the Vail Marriott hotel.
Town officials have gained assurances from their selected contractor, Mortenson Construction, that the conference center and 320 adjacent parking spaces will cost a maximum of $53.3 million, within the price range of the proposed new tax revenues.
“The only reason it wouldn’t is if the town of Vail … wanted something more” in terms of design features, Forrest said.
If the measure fails, though, the center is killed entirely, and the Town Council will have to decide what to do with the $7 million or so that already has been raised through taxes for the center and not yet spent.
Both sides expect the vote to be at least as close as the previous election.
“Closer,” Walsh said. “There’s no getting around it: The community is divided.”
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
