Indy's downtown hotels tell Indiana lawmakers a new hotel in the mile square will only hurt overall occupancy.

1. Jim Dora, Jr.
President & CEO
General Hotels Corporation
Owner: Crowne Plaza Airport, Union
Station Hotel, Homewood Suites Keystone
at the Crossing
Bruce White
Chairman
White Lodging Services Corporation
Owner: Marriott Indianapolis Downtown,
JW Marriott Indianapolis Downtown, Fair-
field Inn & Suites Indianapolis Downtown
Daniel P Hansen
Chairman, President & CEO
Summit Hotel Properties
Owner: SpringHill Suites Indianapolis
Downtown, Courtyard Indianapolis
Downtown
Joseph Yung
Senior Vice President of Development
Columbia Sussex Corporation
Owner: Hyatt Regency Indianapolis
Jeremy Welter
Co-President & Chief Operating Officer
Ashford
Owner: Sheraton Hotel Downtown
Indianapolis
Mark Schlossberg
Authorized Representative
SWVP Indy LLC
Owner: Hilton Indianapolis Hotel & Suites
Jeffrey Brown
CEO | Schahet Hotels
Owner: Hampton Inn Indianapolis/North
Carmel, Hampton Inn & Suites India-
napolis Airport, Hampton Inn & Suites
Indianapolis/Keystone, Hilton Garden Inn
Indianapolis Airport, Holiday Inn Indianap-
olis Airport, Fairfield Inn & Suites Carmel,
Hampton Inn Westfield
Jeffrey S. Clark
Vice President | Host Indianapolis LP
By it’s general partner host
Indianapolis Hotel Member LLC
Owner: The Westin Indianapolis
Jeffrey J. Good
President | HRC Hotels LLC
Owner: Homewood Suites Indianapolis
Downtown, Homewood Suites Indianap-
olis Northwest, Homewood Suites Indi-
anapolis Airport, Fairfield Inn & Suites
Indianapolis, Home2 Suites Indianapolis
Downtown
Michael W. Wells
President | REI Real Estate Services LLC
Owner: Marriott Indianapolis Downtown
March 5, 2019
Speaker Brian Bosma
President Pro Tem Rod Bray
Leader Tim Lanane
Leader Phil GiaQuinta
Gentlemen:
It is an exciting time to live and work in downtown Indianapolis. Construction of new residential units is visible from Fountain Square to Mass
Avenue. Our streets are teeming with the energy of millennials and retired urban dwellers. Our sports franchises are experiencing consistent
success. And our hotel industry is enjoying reasonably good occupancy rates of nearly 73 percent. There is plenty of justification for confi-
dence in the future of the downtown economy.
But confidence can easily be distorted by irrationality. Just when the supply of downtown hotel rooms is in appropriate balance with demand,
the Indianapolis Capital Improvements Board (CIB) is proposing to subsidize the construction of two new hotels totaling 1,414 rooms. In
addition, 1,327 more rooms are slated to open over the next two years, bringing a total of 38 percent more rooms to the already robust 7,180
rooms available to downtown visitors. This is despite absolutely no evidence that demand for hotel rooms will rise to meet the unprecedented
increase in supply. In fact, quite the opposite.
An independent study recently completed by internationally recognized LW Hospitality Advisors (LW) concludes that if the CIB scheme
comes to fruition, occupancy rates at downtown hotels will actually drop 9 percent by 2025, damaging what has been a vibrant hospitality
industry and throwing the downtown economy into turmoil.
The CIB, and its partner, Visit Indy, are financed largely through tax receipts generated by the hotel industry. The industry has supported
every previous increase in hotel room supply, because enough convention center space was added to “induce” larger conventions to come to
Indianapolis and thus create demand for the additional rooms.
The current CIB proposal relies on $120 million drawn from hotel tax receipts and hotel worker income taxes. But the CIB has refused to
include the hotel industry in constructive discussions. Why?
It is like giving the CIB money to buy a sledgehammer so they can hit us over the head with it.
Why should policymakers and their constituents care about the success or failure of Hoosier hoteliers? Because the hotel industry directly
employs thousands of workers downtown alone. Add to that number the restaurant, transportation and entertainment workers supported by
our hotel guests, and you have a significant impact on the lives of thousands of central Indiana families.
If irrational expansion of the hotel room supply results in a depressed hospitality market (as the independent study suggests), everyone will
lose. Hotel, restaurant and transportation employees will be laid off. Tax revenue generated by their income taxes will be lost. Existing hotels
will be unable to continue to maintain and improve their hotels, resulting in less desirable hotel rooms for convention and other guests. And
the CIB’s scheme, while well intended, will be self-defeating.
We have a decades-old tradition in Indianapolis, dating back to the “City Committee” of the 1970s, of inviting all players to the table so that
the best minds can produce the best civic result for all Hoosiers. We, the undersigned leaders of the Indianapolis hospitality industry, ask that
we be invited back to the table.
Until the CIB gets serious about inclusivity in its planning, we must individually, and collectively strongly oppose the CIB’s scheme to irratio-
nally flood downtown Indianapolis with new hotel rooms for which there is no projected demand, and therefore oppose Senate Bill 7 in its
current form.
Sincerely,