Instead, the city will build and own the hotel itself, under current plans.
Webb was to meet with officials from Marriott, Starwood, Hilton, Loew's and possibly Omni, sources tell GlobeSt.com.
Liz Orr, who heads special projects for the mayor, says the city only is interested in meeting with the corporate side, not the franchise size, of hotel operators. She says corporate hotels tend to be more prestigious and the corporate side is the one that tends to operate convention-center, corporate hotels.
That would preclude, for example, Denver-based developer Bruce Etkin and Indiana-based White Lodging from building the hotel. But David Cole, spokesman for White Lodging, says Marriott top brass will tell Webb that it is 100% behind White Lodging's bid.
Cole tells GlobeSt.com that White Lodging built the convention-center hotel for Indianapolis and Louisville, KY. He also says that studies show that customer satisfaction is actually higher with franchise hotels than with corporate-owned ones, he says, so it would be a mistake to think that a franchise hotel is an inferior property.
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