City ready to move to buy the Crowne Plaza Five Seasons Hotel, mayor says

CEDAR RAPIDS - City Hall apparently is willing to get into the hotel business.

Mayor Ron Corbett will hold a news conference at 3 p.m. today to talk about the prospects of the city buying city's only downtown hotel, the 16-story, 275-room Crowne Plaza Five Seasons Hotel.

The news conference will be at the hotel.

The hotel, the vitality of which is seen as crucial to the revitalization of the flood-damaged downtown, currently is owned by creditor CW Capital Asset Management of Washington, D.C. CWCapital, a reluctant owner, foreclosed on the property in October 2008 and took control of it at a sheriff's sale in late 2009.

After the sheriff's sale, the city quickly hired a hotel consultant in January to arm itself with some facts about the hotel, and at that time, said one option might be for the city to actually purchase the property to help guarantee its future viability.

The hotel is joined at the hip with the city's U.S. Cellular Center arena, which is about to undergo a $15-million upgrade as part of an overall $67-million project that includes the construction of an Event Center convention facility next door.

Once the convention center is up in 30 months, the value of the hotel should climb, city officials have suggested.

Mayor Corbett said this morning that he will ask the City Council to give the go-ahead to have the interim city manager negotiate for the hotel's purchase. In recent weeks, he has suggested that the purchase price might be in the range of $3 million to $4 million.

Cities can own hotels. The City of Coralville, for instance, owns the Coralville Marriott Hotel and Conference Center.