ST. GEORGE – Officials agreed to purchase a hotel in downtown St. George and will contract with a management company to run the business until a buyer can be found for the property.
The St. George City Council agreed to purchase The Inn at St. George for $1.6 million from Asilimar Partners Utah, LLC, during a regular council meeting Thursday.
The hotel sits on 1.1 acres at 60 West St. George Boulevard; the property is within an area designated as part of the Community Redevelopment Area.
The property and hotel are directly across the street from the planned $30 million City View redevelopment project, which will be located in the block bounded by Main Street, St. George Boulevard, 100 West Street and Tabernacle Street.
Plans for City View include three separate buildings up to four stories high that will house 110 residential units and 100,000 square feet of commercial space.
The property is on the corner of 100 West and St. George Boulevard which is one of the most prominent parcels left in the whole Community Development Area, St. George City Manager Gary Esplin said.
With the city buying the hotel, the question was what to do with it until it is sold and integrated into the redevelopment project.
“We don’t want to be in the (hotel) business,” St. George Mayor Jon Pike said. “But we don’t want to tear it down and have a hole.”
The City Council approved an agreement with NJE Hospitality to manage the hotel; the company is already running several hotels in St. George. City officials plan to improve the hotel’s parking lot and make the property “look presentable.”
The city is also in the process of a purchasing a building at 76 W. St. George Boulevard which once housed the Dixie Regional Medical Center Thrift Store. The thrift store closed in March and transitioned to the Switchpoint Thrift Store.
Other business
In other business, the City Council approved a zone change to allow a new subdivision on 52.68 acres of property located east of state Route 18 at approximately 4300 North and south of The Ledges Golf Club.
The zone change from a mining and grazing classification to residential estate with a 12,5000 square foot minimum lot size, or low-density residential, will allow the Saddle and Sage subdivision to be built.
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This is absolutely fantastic news and I’m sure this will result in a positive reaction from the community and I would like to thank all those involved in making this possible this is a great project and I’m glad to see it move forward.
Community redevelopment is a scam, plain and simple. The city has no business whatsoever purchasing real estate with the intent of influencing the direction of economic development in any part of the city. This is socialism in its purest form. The only forces that should be affecting economic development are in the private sector. When governments get involved in these kinds of ventures, the only result is corruption and graft.
My goodness…. does the stupidity at the city leadership level ever stop??
So Mayor Pike was pushing for the passage of Prop 1 about a month ago. Supposedly the City of St. George doesn’t have the funding for proper maintenance of city streets…..but it DOES have funding for the purchase of a motel. And to run it as a business, no less. The management company is not going to run for free.
So, please someone….anyone, please tell me when does the stupidity at leadership level of the City stop????
Can it get anymore stupid???
Chris has this right. Government needs to do the things it must do and let capitalism work. We (the taxpayers) are constantly being asked for more both directly and indirectly for more tax money, so these pet projects can be done. Exactly why, I don’t understand. If it made any sense this area has plenty of developers who would pounce on ‘prime real estate’. Can we have a breakdown of the votes for ANY of this type of ‘city business’ so we know exactly who is in favor of spending taxpayer money on what is a NON ESSENTIAL item?
Thank you. It is particularly bothersome to me because you can bet that the entire city council and the mayor would consider themselves conservative Republicans who oppose “government overreach.” Yet, here they are inserting themselves into economic issues simply because they consider one or two blocks of downtown to be eyesores. Let the free market forces work and stand aside!