Well, it appears that the vote for (which was a vote no) the Convention Center Hotel in Dallas is going to pass. I'm not really surprised; I predicted passage over on the Observer blog a while back. These kind of votes always seem to pass because they're presented as something that's uniformly good for the city. And the average person doesn't go deep into the numbers to think about how the whole thing will work, they just trust that their elected officials know what they're doing.
The hotel may very well end up being good for the city. It is certainly a possibility. The numbers that the city has put out there as its break even are certainly not outside the realm of possibility. However, there is a risk, and despite what the commercial says, taxpayers will be on the hook if the hotel fails to live up to its projections.
There's a part of me that hopes the hotel does fail to live up to its relatively aggressive projections just so I can say "I told you so", but that's pretty stupid (especially since the people who so aggressively supported the hotel will likely be out of office by then or will otherwise come up with some quote saying they were misinformed or they'll rewrite history to say they were always upfront about how the taxpayers would have to pay for part of the hotel).
So, I wish the project well and hope it manages to live up to the expectations that have been set out for it. I will remain skeptical but hopeful.
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