To: Charlotte City Council
Mecklenburg County Commission

The Charlotte Area Hotel Association (CAHA) supports the building of a new minor league baseball park in Center City, with City and County financial support, as proposed. Minor league baseball will offer one more entertainment venue for our overnight hotel guests and potentially add to their enjoyment of our City and hopefully their return.

But more importantly, the additional potential uses of the stadium facility for tournaments, concerts and other entertainment make it an excellent draw for meeting planners, tournaments and athletic conferences to choose Charlotte as their destination of choice for their events. These multi-day-stay events bring significant revenue into the City, generating occupancy tax dollars, down-stream revenue and employment for many of our citizens. When convention, meeting or tournament attendees come to town, they stay here, eat here, and seek other entertainment, and then they return home. In other words, they come here, spend their money here, and then return home, without causing additional residential or infrastructure requirements.

The direct and down-stream revenue created, property and sales taxes generated, and increased employment opportunities, are all complete justification for the use of tax dollars in helping this project, because this investment will continue to generate a return on that investment for years to come.

CAHA is the trade association representing the interests of the convention and meetings hotels in the region. The hotel industry in Mecklenburg County is the revenue generator of all the occupancy taxes received by the City and County. These hotels employ more than 5,200 people and pay annual wages of more than $120.1 million.

Respectfully submitted,
Sid Smith
Executive Director