Hotel and parking lot in works at River Landing

CORALVILLE – A new hotel and parking ramp could be open in a year and a half in Coralville's budding Iowa River Landing district.

The City Council Tuesday night approved selling land for the hotel and to set a Dec. 14 public hearing for a financing plan for the parking structure. Both votes were unanimous and with little discussion.

In two more unanimous votes, the council OK'd a bond sale and tax increment financing deal for a condominium project on Fourth Avenue, north of Second Street, to replace housing lost in the 2008 flood.

In the Iowa River Landing district, the hotel and parking ramp would become part of the city's redevelopment of 150 acres of mostly city-owned land southeast of the Interstate 80-First Avenue interchange.

Plans for the area include upscale shopping – with some of those retailers expected to be announced soon – along with entertainment, commercial and residential projects.

Also, the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics is building an outpatient clinic there that is expected to serve more than 300,000 patients per year after it opens in fall 2012.

The hotel and parking ramp would help serve the clinic's visitors and are scheduled to open in summer 2012.

The council voted to sell land for the hotel for $1.5 million to Lincoln McIlravy, a former Iowa wrestler who owns the Comfort Suites south of Coral Ridge Mall. His plans in Iowa River Landing are for a 100-room Homewood Suites extended-stay hotel.

The Coralville Marriott & Conference Center also is nearby.

The parking ramp would include two floors for the hospital clinic and another for shoppers.

The city wants to issue $22 million worth of bonds to finance the project. The hospital will pay for the annual operating costs of the parking facility, including the debt for the bonds, City Administrator Kelly Hayworth said.

The City Council also voted to issue $16 million in bonds and to OK a tax increment financing, or TIF, agreement for Villas on 4

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condominiums.

That project calls for 108 units in four buildings on Fourth Avenue. Villas on 4

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LLC will use the bonds to finance the project and it, not the city, will cover the costs of the bond issuance.

The TIF agreement will send to Villas on 4

The city approved the TIF because it is making Villas on 4

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the increase in property taxes the land generates over 10 years starting in September 2014. Hayworth said a very rough estimate puts the total taxes at about $180,000 annually once all the buildings are constructed. Each year, $40,000 of the taxes, which is about what the land brings in now, will continue to go to the government.

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build berms along Clear Creek and use a wall from one of its buildings as a floodwall. The condos will replace nearly 100 units demolished after being damaged in the 2008 flood.