$300 Million Downtown KC Convention Hotel Is On the Way

Hyatt Hotel Rendering

Kansas City is getting its long-awaited Downtown convention hotel: Mayor Sly James and project developers announced this morning that an 800-room hotel, flying the Hyatt flag, would be built across the street from the Kansas City Convention Center, with an expected opening in 2018.

The $300 million partnership between the city and an out-of-state group called Kansas City Hospitality Investors will require a $35 million commitment from the city, to be repaid from an already-existing Convention and Tourism Tax. None of that commitment, James pointed out, would come from the city’s general fund, taxpayers would not be on the hook for any project cost overruns, and there is no city guarantee of the tax-increment financing debt.

Mike Burke of Burke, Swerdling & Associates, part of the project team, said the $2 million that’s expected to be raised by taxes from the project would cover the costs of the city’s annual commitment.

The new hotel will include roughly  75,000 square feet of meeting and banquet space, 9,000 square feet of garden/terrace space, 15,450 square feet of other retail, restaurant, bar and lounge space, a 9,913-square-foot recreational facility and a parking facility with 450-500 spaces, the city said.

James, Burke and Ronnie Burt, president of VisitKC, the city’s convention and tourism partner, said the new hotel would help regain convention business lost in recent decades for lack of suitable rooms, and James noted that Kansas City had not added any hotel rooms within a 10-minute walk of Bartle Hall since 1985.

“This announcement is a game changer for the KC hospitality industry,” said Burt. “Over the last 10 years, Kansas City has lost out on hundreds of groups, representing millions of room nights and more than $3 billion in economic impact.”