That led to the city-owned airport’s announcement Monday, Nov. 16, that it will close the hotel Jan. 31, 2010, and demolish the building to clear the way for an economy-rate parking lot, where customers could use credit cards to pay for parking.
“It should be a revenue source, not an expense source,” Ahmad said Tuesday.
CWB Property Management Inc., a suburban Columbus company, operates the airport hotel under contract to Dayton. About 35 full- and part-time jobs, will be lost when the hotel closes, said Larry Wheeler, the hotel’s general manager. Employees were informed Monday and have been asked to stay on for as long as possible, Wheeler said.
The city will have to hire contractors to liquidate the hotel’s contents, demolish the building and install the parking lot and the pay-for-parking systems, Ahmad said. The parking lot could be operating by late summer, he said. It would add about 650 economy-rate spaces to the airport’s current 1,350 economy parking spaces.
White Hills LLC, a Cincinnati developer, is to build a new Holiday Inn Hotel and Suites at the airport and pay the airport $48,800 annually in lease fees for use of the land, under an agreement the city announced in January 2009. The new, privately operated hotel is to be open by the end of 2010. Until then, travelers have the option of off-site hotels within 15 minutes of the airport, Ahmad said.
The current hotel was built in 1970 by private interests. The city bought it out of financial receivership in 1999 and has had a contractor operate it since then.
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