2 Guilford County Commissioners Tell Randall Kaplan from Downtown Greensboro Hotel What They Think About Economic Incentive's in Future

During the September 16, 2010  Guilford County Commissioners meeting all the talk was about approving the federal recovery bonds for a new downtown luxury hotel which will be called Wyndham Greensboro. During this agenda item we had our own Triadwatch contributor George Hartzman speak his mind and asked a few questions CLICKHERE thanks FEC at Vie De Malchance.

One of the most unusual aspects of this agenda item was hearing what both Guilford County Commissioners Kirk Perkins and Linda Shaw had to say about something that will probably come back up in front of the county commissioners and probably as well the City of Greensboro which is economic incentive money offered by the local municipalities.

Here is what County Commissioner Kirk Perkins had to say,




As you can see from the video embedded above, the commissioner tells Randall Kaplan from the local group who wants to build the luxury hotel that, "hopefully they won't apply for the economic incentive policy , hopefully if they do we will turn them down but certainly if it is available then they should go for it."
That sounds like a shot below the belt from a county commissioner saying to them don't even think about coming back in front of council to apply for the county economic incentive policy .

But wait there is more because another Guilford County Commissioner in Linda Shaw had something to say as well here is the embedded video below.




The commissioner talks to Randall Kaplan and asks him if he is going to come back in front of us to ask for more money because we are going to stop you right now on incentives. In the video you can see a bewildered look on Randall Kaplan's face in regards to this issue.

It was interesting to see 2 county commissioners come out even before they ask for incentive to let the hotel group know that they can apply for the incentives but might have a hardtime getting approval.

It will also be interesting to see them try to get incentive money out of the Greensboro City Council as well.

One thing that might become a issue is hearing at the commissioner's meeting where Randall Kaplan from the hotel group talked about them being a good tenant for a parking garage in downtown Greensboro but maybe both the Guilford County Commissioners and the Greensboro City Council who will see the economic incentive application can put on a restriction that any incentive money will go towards the building of a parking deck near the hotel and that part of elm street.

Now that this project is on the fast track for completion and needs to start breaking ground soon, it will be fun to see the Wyndham Greensboro owners come back in front of the local municipalities with their incentive package and see if they have the votes for it to pass because these 2 commissioners were trying to say to Randall Kaplan you probably don't have my vote if you come back in front of us.