Clymer: Hotel Agreement a 'Bad Deal' for Paducah

McCracken County Judge-Executive Craig Clymer has written a letter to Paducah city leaders expressing his objection to the city's plan to renew an agreement with a downtown hotel.

In a letter dated August 5 addressed to Paducah Mayor Brandi Harless, Commissioners Sandra Wilson, Brenda McElroy, Gerald Watkins, Richard Abraham, and City Manager Jim Arndt, Clymer says he opposes the renewal of a 2015 right of first refusal agreement with the developers of the Holiday Inn at 600 N. 4th Street. Clymer says he doesn't see the need for the city to extend the agreement, which gives the developer the right to purchase the property adjacent to the hotel for $300,000 within three years of the hotel's completion, for another two years.

"A bad deal for the city is a bad deal for the county in which the city lies," Clymer says. There is no benefit for the city to renew the ROFR. The Holiday Inn had three years to decide whether to purchase riverside land to complement the hotel. The three years has passed and the hotel did not elect to purchase. The deal is done and passed. There is no longer any incentive to build a hotel that has already been built. At the risk of sounding silly, an analogy would be a married couple deciding to get married."

Clymer also voices concern that the agreement will allow the hotel's owners to buy the property in the event another potential buyer makes a higher offer, describing a scenario in which a potential buyer offers $500,000, but the city is unable to accept it due to the ROFR agreement with the Holiday Inn.

Clymer's final concern outlined in the letter is the agreement would keep the property in question from being used as a possible location for the proposed downtown City Block Project, which includes another hotel.

"If the Holiday Inn is granted the ROFR and purchases the the riverside property it will eliminate the possibility of a popular alternative site for the downtown hotel development," He says. "If the city gives Holiday Inn the ROFR it is certain that the Holiday Inn will not sell to a competitor who could build a hotel next door."

Paducah City Commissioners are set to vote on the proposed extension of the agreement at their Tuesday meeting. Attempts to contact Harless for comment on Clymer's letter were not immediately returned.