Developer to break ground on ex-Hammons project

The Heart of America Group is slated to break ground Thursday on a $51 million hotel and conference center project in Olathe, Kan., utilizing tax incentives redirected to the company after John Q. Hammons Hotels & Resorts failed to raise sufficient financing for the project.

In June 2008, the Olathe City Council unanimously approved a development agreement with JQH Hotels calling for 100 percent property-tax abatement for 10 years on the project. JQH had planned an 11-story, 315-suite hotel and 80,000-square-foot conference center at the Corporate Ridge office park in Olathe, with an original estimated completion date of spring 2010, according to Springfield Business Journal archives.

But the company failed to secure financing for the project, and early last year, the Olathe City Council stripped the tax incentives from JQH and redirected them to Heart of America, according to the Kansas City Business Journal.

Moline, Ill.-based Heart of America's 10-story Embassy Suites & Conference Center would comprise 200 rooms and 25,000 square feet of conference space. The company last year completed a Hilton Garden Inn in Olathe and also operates a Holiday Inn Express & Suites in the city. The company expects to open the Embassy Suites hotel and conference center in summer 2015, according to its website.

Redirected public money includes $19.6 million in tax increment dollars, according to the Kansas City journal.

Phill Burgess, vice president of sales and revenue management for JQH Hotels, could not be reached for comment this morning, and a city of Olathe spokesman was unable to provide a timeline of the events leading up to JQH exiting the project by deadline.

Locally, JQH's downtown hotel University Plaza is undergoing renovations, a $4 million, multiphase project to improve the exterior and interior of the establishment, according to SBJ archives.