Holding their Ground: Hammons and Huffman duel for downtown prominence

Before taking center stage in Springfield, the rivalry between John Q. Hammons and Rick Huffman was brewing in Branson.

There, Hammons’ 10-year-old Chateau on the Lake Resort is facing competition from a new Hilton hotel and a convention center under construction at Branson Landing, the $435 million lakefront shopping venue produced by Huffman’s HCW Development.

The rivalry was recently stoked again when Huffman pitched a full-service, four-star hotel with ballroom space in the middle of Hammons’ downtown Springfield den.

In Hammons’ back yard

Hammons Field is northeast of the hotel site; the distinctive Hammons Tower is directly to the east; and the Hammons-owned University Plaza hotel and convention center sits just south of the site. Hammons also has an operational lease to run the Springfield Exposition Center just west of the 1.7-acre site where Huffman hopes to build.

Hammons’ representatives said Feb. 26 a hotel on the city-owned property wasn’t financially feasible, but on March 9, Hammons publicly announced plans to build a $35 million to $40 million “top-of-the-line” hotel north of the University Plaza convention center. He said the five- to seven-story hotel would be built on the south side of St. Louis Street, directly across from the Expo Center.

Huffman said Hammons appears determined to protect his hometown turf.

“Obviously, it’s a situation where Mr. Hammons doesn’t want any competition in downtown Springfield,” he said. “He’s been building hotels all over the country, but he’s not building one in his own backyard, so we saw an opportunity.”

Hammons, who explicitly stated that his new hotel wouldn’t be profitable, has sidestepped questions about whether Huffman’s hotel proposal played a role in his about-face, and Scott Tarwater, senior vice president of development for Hammons, dismissed the notion of a perceived ego clash.

“Nothing could be further from the truth from Mr. Hammons’ side,” Tarwater said. “He is far, far too busy to think about that for one centile of a second.”

Altered plans

Huffman said he and his partners, who are doing business as HCW Evergreen LLC, have no intention of withdrawing their hotel proposal, although he did say that Hammons’ surprise move has prompted them to modify their plan.

“Two (hotels) will work,” Huffman said. “Two big ones won’t work. That’s why we’ll go to a nicer room at a higher (average daily rate).”

The number of hotel rooms will be reduced to about 150 from 300, and Huffman said an office-space component on the north side of the hotel site is looking promising with three potential office tenants requesting about 60,000 square feet. He said HCW Evergreen also has been in contact with BKD LLP, a Springfield-based accounting firm looking for a new downtown home for its 260-plus employees.

Huffman said the “high-end boutique” hotel – under the Hilton or Embassy Suites brand – also would include 30 residential loft condominiums on its upper floors, 10,000 square feet of meeting space and 23,000 of ballroom space.

“We’re still very excited about the project,” he added.

Huffman said he’s confident HCW Evergreen and the city will reach an agreement that satisfies certain “ground rules” established at a recent City Council luncheon.

The city, which doesn’t want to assume any debt, is seeking a “straightforward deal,” said Economic Development Director Mary Lilly Smith. That deal would include a competitive price for the sale or lease of the site and a commitment to pay down debt associated with the adjacent Jordan Valley Car Park.

For the next several weeks, the city will be negotiating with HCW Evergreen and BKD, which submitted its own proposal for a pair of office buildings, and separately with Hammons to see if the hotelier is requesting any incentives for his new hotel.

Hammons said he’d work with the city to build a covered corridor to the Expo Center – a connection that would span the public right-of-way.

“We’ve got to let things play out a little bit,” Smith told council members. “Are all three deals real deals?”

Staying the course

Members of the Springfield Tax Abatement and Tax Increment Financing Commission said their charge hasn’t changed.

“Why John Q. came out with this announcement, I’m not going to speculate, but I will say that I don’t think it has any impact on how the commission is going to move forward,” said commissioner Rod Nichols, an attorney with Carnahan, Evans, Cantwell & Brown PC. “I don’t really think we can make a determination on the validity of the proposals by taking into account Mr. Hammons’ announcement on what’s going to be built.”

Ultimately, commissioners will recommend a negotiated version of either the HCW Evergreen or BKD proposal to council, based on their merits.

The commission has been directed to consider the economic impact of the proposals in terms of jobs, tax revenue and downtown activity.

Commissioner Dave Coonrod, who opposed a motion excluding Hammons’ proposal for a BKD corporate headquarters building, said he wasn’t surprised the hard-charging hotelier took matters into his own hands.

“I did not think Mr. Hammons would just take this lying down,” said Coonrod, who is Greene County’s presiding commissioner. “It’s not his style.”

Responding to skeptics, Tarwater said Hammons fully intends to build the new hotel across from the Expo Center, and that the four-star property will infuse the downtown area with at least 150 more rooms.

“When he says he’s going to do something, he does it,” Tarwater said. “He is not a gentleman of idle chit-chat. … In those 186 hotels we have developed, there have been a lot of people who say, ‘I don’t believe that.’ Next thing they know, they look up and there it is.”[[In-content Ad]]