Gaylord needs property to be blighted to build in Arizona

Gaylord Palms Hotel in Orlando

The Mesa City Council approved Monday the designation of redevelopment area for the 3,200-acre Mesa Proving Grounds.

That means the developers of two major resorts and a convention center will get an additional $7 million in property tax breaks, for a total of $85.5 million. The property is owned by DMB Associates of Scottsdale.

The resolution, which accepts existence of ‘slum and blight’ conditions on the property, needed six out of seven votes, per state statute, to pass. It was on the consent agenda, which is often approved without discussion, and the vote was unanimous.

In September, Mesa announced the $136.5 million tax-incentive agreement, which includes a bed tax incentive that’s up for a public vote in March. Nashville’s Gaylord Entertainment Co. plans to build a minimum 1,200-room hotel and convention center, similar to the company’s high-profile properties in Texas, Florida and Washington, D.C.

Read the entire story in the East Valley Tribune newspaper.

Gaylord Hotels pulls out of Chula Vista resort project

Chula Vista and the Port of San Diego were reeling yesterday after Gaylord Entertainment dropped plans for a 32-acre resort, another disappointment in 35 years of failed attempts to develop the city's waterfront.



In separate afternoon meetings with the Port District and the city, Gaylord Senior Vice President Bennett Westbrook said the regulatory and financial hurdles were deal-breakers.

The project had been held out as the bayfront savior that would bring jobs, tourism and cash to Chula Vista, the port and Gaylord, based in Nashville, Tenn.

“I'm really disappointed,” said Mayor Cheryl Cox, who added that she had no idea Gaylord planned to pull out. “There is no doubt in my mind that Gaylord's decision is final.”

Read the complete story in the San Diego Union Tribune.

Timeline
February 2005: A group from Gaylord Entertainment, based in Nashville, Tenn., visits Chula Vista City Hall unannounced to ask about building a massive complex on the city's bayfront.

Aug. 9: The Port Commission opens up the project for other developers to bid.

Nov. 1: The Port Commission chooses Gaylord over local developers.

July 2006: Gaylord, Chula Vista and the Port Commission sign an agreement, and the company begins negotiating with labor.

March 15, 2007: Gaylord unveils a detailed concept design for a 32-acre complex, including 1,500 to 2,000 hotel rooms, meeting space, shops, a spa and fitness center, six restaurants and a rooftop bar.

June 29: A Gaylord official meets with union leaders in San Diego after negotiations stall, but no deal is reached.

July 6: Gaylord pulls out of the project for the first time.

Aug. 7: Gaylord resumes talks with the city and the Port District.

September 2008: Gaylord announces plans to build in Mesa, Ariz.

Yesterday: Gaylord withdraws from the Chula Vista project, citing infrastructure costs and a complicated regulatory and legal structure.

Online: Read Gaylord Entertainment's letter to city and port officials at uniontrib.com/more/documents

Gaylord Hotels go to Arizona

Gaylord Texan Hotel

The announcement Sept. 3 that Gaylord Hotels would build its next major venue near Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport. The buzz went national, in fact, as hotel-industry publications and Web sites pulsed with news of Gaylord's planned expansion.

In the month-plus since Gaylord first announced its Mesa venture, the company and DMB Associates, from whom Gaylord is buying the resort site, have been ironing out a development agreement with the city.

An early draft showed Mesa allowing Gaylord to retain bed taxes to be collected at its resort, as long as the money is used to promote its Valley venue and Arizona tourism.

Under an economic-development provision in state law, Mesa also will take ownership of the land and lease it back to Gaylord, giving the company a break on property taxes.

No drawings nor site plans for the Mesa site have been drafted. Mesa is annexing and rezoning the site.

Read the entire story HERE.

Gaylord to buy San Antonio hotel

Gaylord Entertainment Co. will make the biggest hotel acquisition in its history under a deal announced Monday by the Nashville-based lodging company.

Gaylord will pay $252.5 million for the Westin La Cantera Resort, a suburban San Antonio hotel with 508 rooms, 39,000 square feet of meeting space, two golf courses and a 691-acre campus. The company also plans to pour $250 million into a three-year expansion effort that will nearly double the number of rooms and quadruple its meeting space.

“This is a premium property in that market place that fits very well with what we’re trying to do,” said David Kloeppel, Gaylord’s chief financial officer.

The deal, which could wrap up early next year, is the first step in Gaylord’s strategy to supplement its core, convention center hotels with smaller resorts.



Visit the Tennessean newspaper to read the entire story of this purchase.

Gaylord National Hotel Goes All Out to Charm Prospective Customers

By Anita Huslin
Washington Post Staff Writer



It's a balmy, picture-perfect autumn morning when the limousines begin arriving, and the reception at the historic mansion overlooking the Potomac River has been laid out by hospitality company Gaylord National to impress.

The guests -- potential corporate clients, mostly planners who book meetings and conferences in the mid-Atlantic region -- lap up the mimosas and bloody marys, nibble on hors d'oeuvres, and bask on the sun-kissed portico of the Oxon Hill Manor, a property once owned by a nephew of George Washington.

Though the guests are appreciative of the effort, it remains to be seen whether the endeavor will translate into business for the newest property in Gaylord Entertainment's hotel chain.

They have lots of questions about the place. How would guests get to Washington, to sightsee or dine in the nation's capital? What other restaurants and retail will be at the Gaylord complex and neighboring National Harbor? What kind of hotel overflow capacity does it have? Could they hang a trapeze from the ceiling of the convention hall if they wanted to?



This is only the beginning of a sales push for the Nashville-based company that wants to establish its complex in the Washington area as a premier meeting and convention space.

Over the next several months, the Gaylord National executive sales team will be pressing to fill its reservation book. It has already sold more than 1 million room nights (over the next decade and beyond), filling the 2,000-room hotel to 60 percent capacity next year when it opens, 55 percent in 2009 and 35 percent in 2010. Now, Gaylord officials said, their focus is booking short-term corporate and leisure clients -- in hospitality industry parlance, transients.

This will be a smaller share of Gaylord National's business, of which large association meetings and conventions account for 70 percent. But that 30 percent, Gaylord executives believe, represents future clients of other properties in the hotel chain.

Which is why the elaborate, invitation-only reception last week was so focused on details. Gaylord flew in executives and chefs from Nashville, Orlando and Dallas for the day. They sent limousines to pick up each guest individually, and then they wined, dined and walked their guests to the top of the hotel, showing them the vistas and the amenities.

Read the entire story in the WashingtonPost.

Gaylord National Resort Set to Open April 25, 2008

Among William C. Marks’s favorites are the Gaylord Entertainment Company, which focuses on luxury hotel properties with convention centers, including the 2,881-room Gaylord Opryland in Nashville and the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Prince George’s County, Md., which is set to open next year with 2,000 rooms.

“Outside of Las Vegas, there are very few good-quality large hotels with more than 1,500 rooms being built,” Mr. Marks, a managing director at JMP Securities said.

Read the article in the New York Times.




Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center provides world-class convention and leisure-focused amenities – all in one place. It is located along the banks of the Potomac River, less than eight miles south of the nation’s capital, in National Harbor, Md., a new 300-acre waterfront destination offering world-class dining, retail and entertainment venues in Prince Georges County, Md. The Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center is the largest convention resort on the Eastern Seaboard, offering 2,000 guest rooms, including 108 lavish suites; more than 470,000 square feet of convention, meeting, exhibit and pre-function space; acclaimed restaurants; Relâche™ Spa; and a soaring 18-story, 1.5-acre glass-covered atrium.

Gaylord Hotels Halt Plans in the San Diego Area

Company pulls out of Chula Vista project
By Tanya Mannes and David Washburn
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS


A redevelopment deal that would have erased decades of failure to build up the Chula Vista bayfront – and made the city a big player in the national convention business – is dead.

Citing an inability to reach an agreement with local unions after more than a year of negotiations, Gaylord Entertainment said yesterday that it will no longer pursue a plan to build a $1 billion hotel and convention center on the city's long-vacant bayfront.

The Tennessee company's decision marked a stunning reversal of fortune for a deal that Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox just months ago called “the most realistic and realizable plan for the bayfront that I've seen in more than 30 years.”

While Cox and other city officials joined Gaylord in blaming unions for the deal's demise, local labor leaders, along with Rep. Bob Filner, D-San Diego, said the company's intractable negotiating stance and Cox's poor leadership led to its unraveling.

Cox said Gaylord CEO Colin Reed called her yesterday afternoon from Nashville to tell her the news.


Read more of this story in the San Diego Union-Tribune

Deadlock over Gaylord resort spurs rally by officials

By Tanya Mannes
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Faced with the threat of losing a bayfront development to a labor dispute, Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox and other public officials held a rally yesterday to demand that union leaders resume bargaining with Gaylord Entertainment.

“Labor leaders, it's up to you now,” Cox said, surrounded by 150 supporters in a vacant lot near the Gaylord site. “Get on the next plane to Nashville and make a deal now to let this resort go through.”

Negotiations between local unions and Gaylord broke down Friday.

The Tennessee-based company has city and Port of San Diego support to construct the $1 billion hotel and convention center on a long-vacant stretch of bayfront land, but no agreement with the local union leaders to build it. Without an agreement, Gaylord officials have pledged to walk away from the development.


Read more on this development in the Union Tribune in San Diego.