Phoenix officials hoping more hotels in downtown continue positive cycle
May 23, 2017, 4:50 AM | Updated: 8:37 am
(Facebook Photo)
(Facebook Photo)
PHOENIX — Visitors to Phoenix are getting more options for places to stay in the city. Several hundred new hotel rooms are either already open or on their way in the downtown area.
Marriott has just opened a 19-story high-rise near Central Avenue and Madison Street. The hotel is a combination of a Residence Inn and a Courtyard by Marriott. It has 320 rooms.
Construction has begun on a Hampton Inn near First and Polk streets, next to Arizona State University’s downtown campus. It will have more than 200 rooms and is expected to open in the summer of 2018.
Dan Klocke, executive director of the Downtown Phoenix Partnership, said the city offers a lot of amenities in which people are interested.
“We have 200 restaurants in downtown,” he said. “We have 10,000 theater seats. We have most of the major sporting teams downtown and a huge number of live music venues.”
He said the visitors filling up the hotel rooms are good for the city.
“There are sales tax revenues and then, people obviously need to eat, so they’re going to the restaurants and the retail spaces, so this is a really important revenue generator for the city of Phoenix,” he said.
As more visitors come to town, revenues from hotels increases. That money is then used for more improvements in downtown and citywide.
“That’s general revenue funds going to pay for police and parks and fire and all the critical things a city needs.” Klocke said.
“Obviously, there’s been a lot of investment in downtown, and now downtown is really beginning to generate revenue for the city as well.”
He said downtown’s proximity to Sky Harbor Airport is a plus. He noted that people are now taking Uber or the light rail to downtown hotels, not renting cars.
“What we’re finding is that there is not only interest from conventions, but also from business travelers and tourists, as well. So, we’re really excited, quite honestly, that we’re able to add more hotel rooms to the mix, which helps us in turn, attract more conventions and it’s sort of this positive cycle that’s beginning.”
