By Lauren Young

Staff Writer

The Town of Dewitt is seeking to collect its own tax on hotel rooms and, if successful, will be the first town in Onondaga County to do so.

According to Town Supervisor Ed Michalenko, “hotels are the number one industry in the Town of Dewitt,” and about half of the county’s room occupancy taxes come from their hotels — about 30 hotels total. While Onondaga County currently has a hotel room occupancy tax, about half of their collected revenue, roughly $6 million a year, comes from the hotels in Dewitt.

The town’s proposal is intended to add a 2.75 percent room occupancy tax but would first have to undergo approval by the state legislature. Currently, the county already has an additional 5 percent room occupancy tax in place.

On Monday night, March 12, the Dewitt Town Board discussed the tax during a public hearing following a presentation by Director of Planning and Zoning Sam Gordon. The proposal, which concerns the large concentration of hotels around the Carrier Circle area, represents “approximately $100 million in property assessments, and contains 40 percent of the hotel rooms that exist in Onondaga County,” said Gordon.

Gordon said the proposal is estimated to rake in $1.4 million annually, and that revenue will go toward capital projects, including street and sidewalk improvements, intersection upgrades, site aesthetics and construction for the Carrier Park Field of Dreams project, a $12.5 million plan for a fully handicapped accessible, all-inclusive outdoor multi-sports athletic complex.

If the tax is enacted, the town proposes to establish an oversight committee composed of hotel owners, operators and managers to help oversee the expenditure of the proposal.

While some residents at the public hearing were in support of the tax’s intention to improve Carrier Circle, some had concerns about its impact on businesses, namely the hotel managers in the area.

“This particular topic is somewhat concerning to us,” said Danielle Neuser, general manager of SpringHill Suites and Fairfield Inn and Suites in Carrier Circle. Adding the tax, she said, would make Dewitt hotels appear less desirable than cheaper ones in nearby areas.

The minimum wage increase has been additional stressor for hotels, as Neuser said her hotels alone are “seeing an additional $50,000 a piece in labor costs” year after year. “We in our area have seen a lot of business go back to downtown, and so we as a hotel community, Syracuse and Dewitt, really need to find a way to make ourselves more desirable, and adding an additional tax that’s only going to be in this area … I don’t think it’s going to help us,” she said.

“We’ve seen about a 13 percent decline year after year in occupancy out in Carrier Circle, most of which is during the week,” said Eric Ridley, director of hospitality for Pioneer Companies who currently operates two hotels in Carrier Circle. “This puts us at a competitive disadvantage against other parts of the city,” he said, adding that a conversation should take place between hotels and the board before further decisions, as well as a completed feasibility study.

Ridley said his hotels would be willing to give a rebate per occupied room for teams participating on the Carrier Field to ensure a “direct correlation between businesses brought from the field and how we can then support those services and infrastructure improvements.”

Jim Wefers, president of the Greater Syracuse Hospitability and Tourism Association and general manager of Marriott’s Armory Square, echoed both Ridley and Neuser’s sentiments about the hotels needing to be “part of the solution” and the importance of a feasibility study.

Resident Pam Dooley, on the other hand, she said she is supportive of the project and has been with the plan since “day one.” Dooley, who lives approximately a mile and a half away from Carrier Park, said that the project will have a “positive impact” on the community, adding how tournaments will bring athletes from surrounding areas and across the state to generate additional revenue. “People are not going to fight a two-dollar tax added to their hotel bill,” she said.

Dewitt resident Alyssa Grabowski also said she is in favor of the proposal and added that the local community would benefit from creating a park for their kids to play on.

However, resident Sue Fleming had a different opinion, stating how she does not “agree with the tax one bit.” “If we want to bring people here to visit … taxing them more is not going to do it,” she said, adding that grants should be used instead to pay for the park. “People are just going to go to other places next time they come to stay.”

The board closed the public hearing without an approval for the tax, as they plan to meet with hotel representatives next week to further discuss the proposal. Full market and feasibility studies are currently pending.