City Scraps Downtown Hotel. Let’s Grow Weeds Instead!

The headline is sarcasm, but looking at the photo, you would think that it's reality.

There was once plans to have a brand new 240 room hotel on Walnut and MLK downtown, that would be connected to the new Ford Center.

In fact, the website http://www.evansvillearenaproject.com/ says that the new hotel is planned to open in "late 2011". As you can see from the photo taken today, the hotel project is going better than the weed removal on the site.

The Evansville Redevelopment Commission (ERC) issued a study from consultants reagrding the hotel. So how did that turn out? The study cost nearly twice what officials originally said it would, and even some ERC members who voted whether or not to approve the study say they didn't know how much it would cost. Awesome! This is local goverment at it's finest...as screwy as the Federal government. That is nothing to be proud of.

And during the process, the ERC hasn't been making the details very public. Shady? Perhaps. We shall see if and when that new hotel is built and how much the final cost exceeds the estimated cost, because you know it will.

Meanwhile, I get to look at a nice weed farm each day to and from work. Scenic.