State-backed Westin hotel for Delaware riverfront
$37 million, 180-room project to open in 2014
State-backed Westin hotel for Delaware riverfront
Joseph N. DiStefano
Buccini/Pollin Group, the Wilmington firm that built the Philadelphia Union soccer stadium and a string of government-supported redevelopment projects in Delaware, breaks ground today on a $37 milllion, 180-room Westin hotel in Wilmington's Christina River redevelpoment district. The Westin, adjoining the Chase Center on the Riverfront convention and party venue and the new Penn Cinema multiplex project, is to open in 2014. The Westin, the city's first in 20 years according to the state-backed Riverfront Development Corp., will include a "law center" to host visiting corporate lawyers drawn to town for business disputes in the state's specialized Court of Chancery, among other amenities.
The development corporation is backing the project with a $3 million loan guarantee, secured by Gov. Jack Markell's support after rival hotelkeepers and other critics slowed the proposal in the state General Assembly, plus a $1 million city guarantee demanded by lenders as a condition for backing the project. The corporation sold the developer the 3/4-acre parcel for $3 million. Buccini/Pollin affiliate Pollin Miller Hospitality Strategies will manage the Westin.
US Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., lame-duck Mayor James Baker and other dignitaries will join developers David Pollin and Rob Buccini at the 11:30 ceremony. Backers say the hotel will employ more than 120 and generate an average $1.3 million annually in state and local taxes it first three years.
If it was such a good deal the developers wouldn't need the guarantees.— Wilhelm Von Humboldt- Banks love government loan guarantees and deposit insurance, but they don't appreciate government examinations to protect taxpayers.— damnels
