The Kansas City Council on Thursday approved the outlines of a deal for financing a $302-million, 800-room downtown Hyatt convention hotel.
The vote came one day after a council committee endorsed the outlines of the city’s financial partnership with private investors. The full council vote keeps the proposal on the fast-track. It is next scheduled to be reviewed by the city’s Tax Increment Finance Commission on June 30.
The proposed hotel tower and parking garage — unveiled on May 11 — would occupy the block bordered by Wyandotte Street, Baltimore Avenue, 16th Street and Truman Road, south of the downtown freeway loop. The site is directly across Wyandotte from the Kansas City Convention Center’s Grand Ballroom, which is at the southern end of Bartle Hall, and northeast across 16th Street from the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.
The city owns three-fourths of the land for the site, which is currently being used for surface parking. Developers are negotiating with the American Hereford Association, which occupies the only office building on the property, to raze it to clear space for the hotel.
The investment team is led by area development attorney Mike Burke and Bob Swerdling, a Denver-based expert in financing and development convention hotels.
Developers hope to begin construction in early 2016 and open the hotel in 2018.