The development of a 70-room hotel on the west side of Fairfield is facing delays after St. Louis-based developers indicated that the estimated property tax on the project is prohibitively high for construction to move forward.
Fairfield Mayor, Gary Moore says Wayne County Supervisor of Assessments Jodi Poole provided the property tax estimate based on the proposed hotel’s size of 80,000 square feet and an estimated value of $7.1 million. With the current tax rate, the projected annual property tax would amount to $256,000, a figure the developers consider a potential deal breaker.
Moore says he will be reaching out to various taxing bodies to explore the possibility of abating a portion of the tax revenue from the hotel, aiming to reduce the overall tax burden. However, Supervisor Poole noted that any immediate relief is unlikely, as the hotel’s property tax revenue will go into the city’s Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District and not to the individual taxing bodies until the TIF expires in 2028. Therefore, the estimated tax bill remains unchanged based on the current size and value projections.
Mayor Moore says he plans to attend the February meeting of the Wayne County Board and Fairfield Community High School District Board of Education. It remains uncertain whether a reduced tax rate in the future will be sufficient to persuade the developers to proceed with the project. In the meantime, local taxing bodies are receiving no revenue from the undeveloped property.
The proposed Comfort Inn and Suites hotel is planned for an eight-acre parcel of land owned by the city of Fairfield, located just east of Williamson Drive. Developers estimate that the hotel will cost approximately $10 million to build and will feature 70 rooms. Efforts to bring the hotel project to fruition have been underway since October of last year, when the Fairfield City Council approved the transfer of city-owned land to the developers.
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