The voters have spoken, but development of a publicly financed convention center hotel in Dallas still has hurdles to clear. Last Saturday, Dallas voters narrowly (51 to 49 percent) defeated a measure that would have put the project on hold. The pro-hotel forces won in spite of a well-financed, very aggressive and sometimes nasty campaign in support of the measure.

While Dallas City Council has already approved some financing for the $356-million property, it still must sell bonds to raise the additional funds. That can’t be done until interest rates fall to least 5.5 percent for the longer-maturing bonds the city wants to issue.

Most of the opposition to the hotel comes from the aptly named Citizens Against the Taxpayer-Owned Hotel, a group largely financed (about $5 million was raised in the effort) by local developer Harlan Crow, owner of the Hilton Anatole, a large meeting hotel away from downtown and the city’s convention center. In the final weeks of the campaign, several local business leaders launched a pro-hotel group to counter Crow’s efforts.

Earlier this year and after some intense negotiations with the city, Dallas-based Omni Hotels won a contract to operate the property. While the city and Omni were in talks over the agreement, Marriott threw its hat into the ring as an alternative to Omni.

As local hotel consultant Rick Besse told LHOnline in February, “It’s a great (convention) center, but it needs a hotel adjacent to it. It’s very important consideration for many groups. The center can lose a lot of business if there is no hotel adjacent or very close by.”