Seeing the Light

Who is surprised to read this:

"...the Hilton Baltimore Convention Center Hotel has failed to live up to rosy predictions made in more robust times. The 757-room hotel, a block north of Camden Yards, has fallen short in a key measure of a hotel's performance - revenue earned per room. And city officials are less certain the hotel will turn a profit in the three- to five-year time frame originally projected."
- Baltimore Sun, 8/22/2009

If there were only somebody who saw that this was going to happen.....oh, yeah:

This in a city that continually runs deficits in its school system. A city where the crime rate remains one of the highest in the country. A city where drug dealers rule many streets. To spend that amount of money on a business venture is nearly criminally absurd.

What makes it more absurd is the failure of other publicly financed projects of similar magnitude in other major cities. As the Sun cites, similar projects in Myrtle Beach, St. Louis, and Sacramento have been built at tremendous costs to the taxpayers, but without the expected benefits in bookings and revenues the city expended. And on top of those projects, the Rocky Gap resort in Garrett County and our very own Compass Pointe Golf Course are local publicly financed projects that have run in the red since their conception.
- Brian Griffiths, 8/10/2005