Hyatt hotel sale proceeds would help fix neighborhood streets

Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell told a business audience Wednesday that the city is poised to spend $10 million from the sale of the Hyatt Regency Hotel on repairing decaying neighborhood streets.

Later, he said the Hyatt sale is generating about 25 percent more money for street improvements than the $8 million that would have come from a 1 percent sales tax voters rejected two years ago.

“One of the things we’re going to vote on next week is taking $10 million of that $20 million (Hyatt) sale and investing it back into roads for the community,” Longwell said in a speech to the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce at the Hyatt. “That was just a great opportunity to get out of the hotel business and invest back into the community.”

The city’s regular road and bridge funding goes mainly to arterial streets, while the Hyatt money is being earmarked to fix side streets, Longwell said.

“We want to make sure that our neighborhood streets are brought back up to the kinds of standards that we expect for our citizens,” Longwell said.

“It’s not going to fix every neighborhood, but this jump-starts that fix,” he said.

Alan King, director of public works, said workers will start by repairing structural problems on the side streets and then put on an overlay of new sealcoat from curb to curb.

“It will look like a brand-new street,” he said.

The $10 million infusion of cash will be about enough to redo 41 percent of the city’s asphalt streets that are past their service life, he said.

Concrete streets will also be repaired, likely by the end of year one of the three-year paving project, he said.

In addition, the city will alter its priorities for spending its regular street funding, approximately $8 million a year.

The main focus now is making sure the city’s newer and heavily used arterial streets don’t fall into disrepair, King said.

“We’ll be changing the mix (of regular funding) a little bit to help out with the poor streets,” he said.

The city bought the Hyatt 15 years ago when the original developer ran into cashflow problems.

Then, the city paid $18.6 million for the 303-room conference center hotel, in addition to $10.6 million the city spent to subsidize its development.

At the time, the council felt it needed to keep an upscale hotel at the site, as a gateway to downtown and attached to the Century II Convention Center. The city’s purchase ensured it wouldn’t be bought and reflagged to a cheaper chain.

The council sold the hotel in July to casino magnate Phil Ruffin for $20 million. The contract obligates him to keep it a Hyatt hotel until 2026.

This story was originally published December 14, 2016 at 6:06 PM with the headline "Hyatt hotel sale proceeds would help fix neighborhood streets."