CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The American Bank Center is the heart of the conversation around Corpus Christi’s Proposition A, which failed in Tuesday’s election.
The City of Corpus Christi’s goal from the start has been to fund repairs and an expansion of this facility. That reasoning goes back to missed economic development opportunities.
With the failure of Proposition A, what comes next for the city?
“I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the voters of Corpus Christi because I do believe voting allows an important opportunity for a community’s voice to be heard and it was heard,” Mayor Paulette Guajardo said.
Proposition A dealt with the repurposing of a city sales tax called Type A Tax. It's already in use to pay off the debt and maintenance of the Seawall and American Bank Center.
The city was asking for voter approval to use the sales tax money on regional parks, industrial roads, attracting new flights to Corpus Christi and the Convention Center Complex, which could include a headquarters hotel.
“There was several things wrong with this. One, it didn’t have a sunset provision it was in perpetuity. There was a lot of ambiguity around the convention center hotel and there was no plan. There were just too many what if’s," Councilman Gil Hernandez said.
He said he saw the writing on the wall that this would fail. Community members spoke up about not being included in the decision making process and that includes many hotel owners, upset with the idea the city may have a hand in bringing in a new hotel.
Now it’s back to the drawing board with the goal of economic development downtown.
“It’s too soon to say what that’s going to look like but we should have some guardrails as to what that investment is," Hernandez said. "Similar to our downtown Tax Incremental Reinvestment Zone or TIRZ, we do incentivize businesses including hotels, but there's a limitation to it."
Guajardo shared a similar message, now that she's heard how the city feels. She said a path forward will take shape over time as new conversations begin.
“Everyone, profoundly, wants to move forward," she said. "We all want the same thing. We just have to get there. And, I think that assembling a committee that is composed of everyone, so to speak, is going to help us pave that road forward.”
Type A Funds were identified as one of five funding sources to help the city expand the American Bank Center. One of those sources is the state has allowed Corpus Christi to have it's portion of hotel occupancy tax, hotel sales tax and mixed beverage tax within 3 miles of the project for 30 years. Is that money in trouble with no definitive project right now?
"Today, I do not believe that it does, but eventually we do have to identify a project, if we want to take this opportunity and move it forward," Guajardo said.
Going forward, Guajardo said there's an obvious next step.
"In response to the outcome of the election, I will be working with the city council to assemble a committee that will assist in paving our road forward," she said.
“OK, our fault as a city we shouldn't have done it this way," Hernadez said. "But, let’s move forward and try and make this better, get the right community input, do this the right way.”
The current use of Type A Funds is set to expire in 2025 and 2026 when debts are paid off on the Seawall and American Bank Center. So, the city has another opportunity to have residents vote on repurposing the tax in next year’s election,if they choose to do so.
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