By: Claire Fortier, Tribune editorial page editor
(16-10-2000)

City councilman Hal Cole made some excellent points as he chastised me for my recent editorial opposing a Marriott time-share project. The project, which the South Lake Tahoe Redevelopment Agency approved Tuesday, would add 409 units of time-share to the Park Avenue Project. I had argued that more time-share in the redevelopment area beyond the already approved Grand Summit Resort Hotel quarter-share project would decrease the city's lodging mix, decrease future transient occupancy tax and keep tourist dollars on the ski hill. Such is not the case, said Cole. The foremost problem with erecting hotel rooms is that banks are simply not extending money for such construction, except in prime locations like downtown San Francisco. If no money is readily available for new hotel construction, the risk and expense of building such facilities is simply not a gamble corporations are going to make; no matter how much communities like South Lake Tahoe may wish it otherwise.