RSSManhattan-Pro Football player Emmitt Smith wants to build a luxury hotel in the heart of Harlem. City officials are worried about this endeavor. They are worried that he won’t meet the deadline for federal funding.
There are concerns that the city will lose on the Federally backed tax exempt financing in which has caused the city’s economic development corp. to put a back-up plan in motion to insure that a New York City project gets the funding before it expires on December 31, the Wall Street Journal reported.
In June Mayor Michael Bloomberg had approved Smith’s company, Emmitt Smith Legacy Harlem LLC, to receive up to $20 million in federal Recovery Zone Facility Bonds to use towards the 200 room luxury hotel complex at 100 West 125th Street and Lennox Avenue.
Smith was expected to start construction in September on the $80 million, 100,000-square-foot hotel on the vacant lot on 125th Street. The building would also house a YMCA and a Whole Foods supermarket, Crain’s New York Business reported, and would create 129 construction jobs and 81 permanent jobs.
There has been a hearing set because there has been no movement of building on the structure. They are also looking into other projects since this one was approved however there hasn’t been much progress on it.
The city is trying to turn Harlem into a tourism city. They have other ventures in that area as well. To receive the backing they will need to begin construction before year’s end. That has not been done as of yet.
Emmitt Smith is a retired pro football player and enthusiast and entrepreneur. He wants this hotel built and he has the city backing him on it along with the funding as well however it seems to be at a standstill thus far.
There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done for this to be a tourist attraction. The area is still so destitute. It needs a lot of love and care from the money makers to begin constructed into a tourism location like SoHo in New York or Central Park or someplace like that. It will take time and money but the money was there but no ground breaking building going up as of yet.
There is a chance that the money that was given for the construction of this luxury hotel will go back to Washington and why let that happen when the area is in need of more profitable business ventures to come in and help liven this area up? There’s no reason why construction can’t begin before this year ends, they can have those shovels ready and the man power to do it and want to do it. I’m sure there are men that live in Harlem that would love to do some contract work to liven up their living area.
All in all it will be up to the courts to decide when the hearing comes up before the end of the year.