reprinted from:
By Bryon Saxton FARMINGTON, Utah - Hoping to break ground this spring on the proposed $11 million Davis Conference Center, the County Commission Tuesday adopted a tourism-tax ordinance, banking on funds raised by the tax to build the facility. The center is part of a private, $13.1 million, 175-room hotel to be built by the hotel development team of Garn-Kitchell-GSBS. Tourism tax revenues are those dollars generated from the hotel room, restaurant and car rental tax. While the tax is not new, the Commission each year must renew the ordinance authorizing it. The conference center will be built on 15 acres of county-owned land at 700 W. Heritage Blvd. in Layton City. The land, which was purchased with the tourism tax dollars over the last five years, had a purchase price of more than $4 million. County Clerk/Auditor Steve Rawlings said the tax will generate $2.8 million for the county in 2003. In 2004, Rawlings said, bond debt on the center will be about $1 million a year over the next 15 years to pay for the project. In addition to the tourism tax funding the center, $1.1 million of the tax will be used to fund the tourism promotion side of the Office of Community and Economic Development, and $803,000 to fund the operation of the Davis FairPark in west Farmington. County Commissioner Carol R. Page referred to the approval of the tourism tax as a budget highlight in what has been an otherwise difficult budget week with the commission's approval of a 24 percent tax hike for the 2003 calendar year. Page said those monies generated from the tourism tax "can only be used for tourism purposes," and cannot be used in the county's general fund, for example, to fund a $25 million county jail expansion. "I think it is great we have local interest," Page said of the conference center/hotel project involving a local developer, former lawmaker Kevin Garn. As a result, Page said she believes the hotel-development team will take more ownership in the project. "They are part of the community and they do business here," she said. The approved tourism tax revenues for 2003, however, are about $130,000 less than what was initially projected back in June because of the sluggish economy, Rawlings said. County officials are in the process of
developing a memorandum of understanding with the hotel development team to
delineate responsibilities in the development. |
