BILOXI, Miss. (AP) - Mississippi Coast Coliseum & Convention Center officials will dip into a $7 million trust fund to acquire property for more parking and future development.
Coliseum executive director Bill Holmes said the commission has been spending interest on the trust fund. Interest from the trust fund was set up to help fund the operations budget.
“Many, many years ago when interest rates were up, it was very valuable to us,” he said. “But now it only draws $167,000.”
The Sun Herald reports (https://bit.ly/1fnnEiM ) that the board of supervisors approved the request Monday with a stipulation that projects using the money must be brought before the board to inform the public.
Holmes said the Coliseum has been pulling money out of the operating budgets to purchase nearby properties.
“One thing that we’re concerned about is we’ve used a lot of our reserve funds to buy these properties,” said commission member C.T. Switzer.
The commission has bought all but two end-pieces of property along Oakwood Drive to the northwest to make way for a 357-space parking lot. Holmes said they will next look to the western border of Oakmont Place for further expansion, but that is years down the road.
“We can put that money to better use in capital projects such as developing (these areas),” he said.
The commission is waiting for the hotel developer they have been in talks with to purchase the old Holiday Inn property in the southwest corner. Holmes said the developer is negotiating with BancorpSouth, which owns the property.
“The hotel developer’s still working on it,” he said. “They have five ongoing projects in the United States right now and they need to put this land under control and get on this later on in the year.”
Holmes said there is “huge demand” for the hotel and it would probably increase the Coliseum’s business 30 percent to 35 percent. Some conventions involving minors, especially those scheduled for weekends, have trouble finding enough hotel rooms. A hotel next to the Coliseum would capture the business that is less attractive to the casinos, he said.
“If we get the hotel, we can get that land around us, it’ll do nothing but explode,” Holmes said. “All we need to do is be able to keep moving forward like we’ve been doing.”
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Information from: The Sun Herald, https://www.sunherald.com
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