After an analysis of the hotel market and estimated financial performances of hotels Downtown, Hunden Strategic Partners consultant Rob Hunden recommended a 360- to 400-room hotel, estimated to cost $100 million. The recommendation was presented at a Downtown Hotel Feasibility Study Committee meeting.
The City Council granted HSP $40,000 in August to measure the hotel market Downtown.
The city has been considering renovating the Madison Municipal Building. While Hunden said that could be a option for a new hotel, his findings focus more on bridging a gap between Downtown Madison's two large hotels, the Concourse (356 rooms) and the Hilton (240 rooms), and a third hotel to create more rooms closer to the convention center. He also did not discuss any potential developers. City officials and Marcus Corp., developers of the Madison Hilton, had been discussing possible expansion of the Hilton.
Over the past four years, Monona Terrace has held more than 857,000 events. By HSP's estimations, during that time span, Downtown had roughly 1,200 hotel rooms. City officials have said Monona Terrace's struggling business is largely due to a lack of hotel rooms.
Hunden noted the Hilton is currently turning away business because it does not always have the rooms to support large groups of people simultaneously. In his presentation, Hunden said the recommended hotel would target the "convention crowd" and would house a spa, restaurant, ballrooms and several meeting rooms.
Hunden also said the preliminary findings show that Downtown Madison needs more upscale hotel rooms.
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