Had a quite a productive half-hour yesterday on WUNC’s State of Things program trying to explain the problems with Charlotte’s NASCAR Hall of fame bid. But it was also quite illuminating.
I learned that should Charlotte raise its hotel-motel tax another 2 percent to pay for the NASCAR attraction the city’s effective tax on rooms with be the highest on the East Coast, at over 15 percent.
This from Jim Hobbs of the NC Travel and Tourism Coalition, someone who has kept quite close tabs on Charlotte occupancy taxes and how the city has spent them. Further, Hobbs said that he believed the higher room rate prices would drive non-Hall visitors away from Charlotte, perhaps to the extent that Charlotte actually experiences an overall decline in tourism, especially as the site’s newness wears off.
This was troubling news to anyone who wants the best for Charlotte, but what Mayor Pat McCrory added to the discussion when he joined in was downright shocking.
McCrory said that the city’s model for the NASCAR Hall is not so much any of the other sports halls, but more along the lines of the Rock and Roll Hall in Cleveland. Ugh.
As we’ve tried to point out the past few months, that $84 million project is not a model for success:
Architect I.M. Pei has been hired on as designer of Charlotte’s bid in the NASCAR sweepstakes. But here is where abstract predictability veers into the cold, hard reality that even project boosters cannot ignore.
Pei also designed Cleveland’s Rock N Roll Hall of Fame, one of the big ticket public works projects, along with light rail, that was supposed to jump-start that city’s economy. But as late as 2003 the hall required a $350,000 federal grant to supplement its operation and has seen the promised glittering induction ceremony decamp to New York City. (The Cleveland City Council passed a resolution in March begging for the party to come back.)
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So how has this route worked for Cleveland? Not so well. For 2004 the city topped the Census Bureau’s poverty statistics while staring down budget gaps that forced the layoff of teachers and delayed garbage collections. Taxpayers now face both state and local tax hikes to help provide basic services as yet more plans are drawn up for big public works projects that are supposed to magically reverse the dire trends. By every measure the steps that Cleveland took in the 1990s have not panned out. Why would Charlotte repeat them in 2005?
Pat McCrory is a smart guy, he must know about Cleveland’s woes. Or maybe CATS chief Ron Tober, ex-Cleveland train guru, has him hypnotized. Bottomline, the more people talk about their hopes and dreams for the NASCAR Hall in Charlotte, the more the thing looks like a big, big mistake.
