Print edition: 
A petition drive to force a small piece of the Ambassador Hotel Wichita’s funding to a vote is still short of its 2,528-signature goal, organizers said Monday.
Exactly how short isn’t clear, since Americans for Prosperity’s Susan Estes didn’t elaborate on exact numbers.
“We still need several,” Estes said Monday morning. “We’re pushing ahead with three weeks to go.”
Americans for Prosperity, a national group with chapters in Wichita and Kansas championing free-market economics, wants voters to decide whether the Ambassador developers can keep 75 percent of the transient guest taxes collected there over its first 15 years, an estimated $2.25 million of the $22.57 million project.
Ambassador developers are proposing a boutique hotel in the old Union National Bank building at the corner of Douglas and Broadway in downtown Wichita.
The transient guest tax is a 6 percent tax on hotel bills in the city, earmarked for convention and tourism development.
However, the Wichita City Council can pass a charter ordinance subject to a protest petition to redirect some of that revenue, as it did with the Ambassador project.
AFP objects to any public funding of private development, but under state law the guest tax is the only part of the Ambassador’s public funding that can be forced to a vote.
Estes said the group and its supporters have about 75 petitions on the street, although walk-in signers at the AFP’s Wichita offices, 151 Whittier, have slowed since the drive was rolled out in early October.
“We’re still optimistic we’ll get the signatures,” she said.
Paul Coury, the Tulsa boutique hotel developer heading the Ambassador project, said his group is prepared for a public vote on the guest tax funding.
“We’ve hired the right people and we’re going to run an aggressive campaign if they get the signatures,” Coury said Monday. “It’s a shame, because campaigns are expensive, costing time and money for everyone.”
Coury said he wasn’t surprised the petition drive hasn’t finished its work.
“It’s a bad way to handle downtown projects, a negative signal to further business,” he said.
“I think that some people are more interested in the creation of jobs. And others realize this is not a new tax but new money that’s a portion of the transient tax paid for by outsiders.”
The Ambassador is the biggest part of a $30 million project at Douglas and Broadway. As part of the project, the city plans to spend $7.5 million to build a parking garage and a small urban park.
Since the Ambassador announcement in July, Slawson officials have announced plans to redevelop the old Henry’s building, and the Kansas Health Foundation has announced expansion plans on its site. Both are in the same block as the Ambassador.
The result is the first full-block downtown redevelopment project since Project Downtown, the downtown master plan, was rolled out a year ago by the City Council.
