Evansville will have a decades-long lease on the land on which a replacement for the Executive Inn will be built, according to a document issued by city officials Friday.
The Evansville Redevelopment Commission put out a request for proposals from developers interested in building a new hotel to replace the former Executive Inn. That hotel has stood half-demolished since part of it was razed to make room for the Downtown arena.
According to the request document issued Friday, the city proposes leasing the site where the new hotel is to be built to a developer for between 60 and 70 years.
John Kish, director of the arena project, said that arrangement will better enable local officials to ensure the property is run according to a high standard.
"It gives us a greater range of options to control the operation over the years," he said.
Kish said the span of up to 70 years was chosen to give the developer who builds the hotel time to pay off two 30-year mortgages. One mortgage would be to finance the construction and the other to pay for refurbishing the property.
At the end of the period, the ownership of the hotel will revert to the Evansville Redevelopment Authority, according to the request for proposals. Kish said that provision gives local officials an opportunity to renegotiate the terms of use for the property.
Another of the request's stipulations asks respondents to submit plans for "procuring or providing 100 percent of the required financing" for the construction of a hotel.
An inability to secure the needed financing was the main hurdle cited by representatives of the development firm Browning Investments of Indianapolis when they explained why they were unable to build a replacement for the Executive Inn. That difficulty prompted city officials, who had enlisted Browning, to issue the request for proposals and let other developers attempt the project.
Kish said respondents who ask for public assistance in building a hotel won't be rejected automatically.
And as an alternative option, the request document says developers can assume in their responses that they have been provided a site "in a condition suitable to begin construction," meaning it has been cleared of existing buildings, Kish said. In that case, they should plan to pay the city $100,000 a year until the cost of demolition is recovered.
The request for proposals says the preferred site for the hotel construction is the block containing the parking garage across Walnut Street from the Executive Inn. Developers may also consider building where the Executive Inn remnant now stands, according to the document.
The request for proposals calls for the construction of a hotel with at least 220 rooms. The property should have formal and informal dining and lounge rooms, a health club, laundry and dry-cleaning rooms, 24-hour room service and a business center.
The request document also requires developers to list which engineers and architects they plan to work with and which operating company they will hire to run the hotel. And it states a preference for respondents who plan to employ local workers or firms owned by women or minorities.
The request for proposals gives developers until Oct. 1 to respond.