The road to a ground-breaking has been paved with publicity of all type as the city ironed out a public-private partnership with Atlanta-based Stormont Hospitality Group LLC. With the headlines behind them, the players are ready to share some of the financials for the 350,000-sf convention center. More details will come later, they promise. The project was put on hold last summer so the parties could work out the intricacies of the public and private financing.

Irving taxpayers knew enough details to OK a $103-million bond issue. That sale will come in the summer.

The city's 7% portion of a 13% state-shared hotel tax on 11,000 rooms in its bounds will be applied toward bond issue payments for a shared space plan. "Nobody's doing it this way," says Jim Clark, executive director for the Irving Convention Center and Visitors Bureau. Irving wanted to join its top-tier North Texas cities in tapping the convention center trade, but steadfastly refused to jump into the fray without a hotel partner, unlike many other cities now opting to own the rooms and hire the operator. In this case, Irving owns the publicly financed convention center and Stormont owns the privately financed hotel component.

The final details of the master agreement with Stormont are being "hammered out right now" as discussions focus on how to divvy the bottom line for mechanicals and water, Clark tells GlobeSt.com. A signing could come in three weeks. So far, it's been agreed that Stormont will share 22,000 sf of net meeting space, get some surface parking and corner a percentage of the food and beverage trade for the 38.4-acre project in the Las Colinas Urban Center. Hotel parking will include one level of underground space.

Stormont will pay a minimum of $50,000 annual rent for the ground lease and $100,000 minimum per year for the meeting space, says Steve Moffett, the hotelier's regional partner. Clark says extra payment on the land starts six years after the grand opening, tentatively set for late 2005, and is predicated on half of the consumer price index. Irving also will receive 10% of the annual cash flow after Stormont achieves an 11% return on the capital investment, Clark adds. Any refinancing or hotel sale kicks another 10% to Irving. The initial lease is 30 years, with seven 10-year options built into the deal.

Stormont's Westin-flagged hotel is an $84-million design, with $64.9 million coming from an equity partner and debt, says Moffett. The balance is the calculated value of the land, already in the city's hands, and the price affixed to the shared meeting space.

The deep-pocketed investment, which includes $1.2 million from Stormont, is rooted in the city's ability to attract travelers. Irving's occupancy currently is hovering in the 60% range, but it's predicted to return to its pre-Sept. 11 level, which was a low 70%, in the next two years.

"What makes this deal special," Moffett tells GlobeSt.com, "is Las Colinas." What looks like a stand-alone city to out-of-towners is a 12,000-acre quadrant in Irving's bounds that grew from a dream into headquarters locations for some of the nation's wealthiest corporations, with marble curbs, a Venice-style canal and a movie studio adding to the draw. The Las Colinas success story, of course, is cemented by a multitude of freeways to make Dallas, Fort Worth and the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport all readily accessible destination points.

Irving and Stormont say they've targeted a niche convention market--associations and mid-size trade shows--as their bread and butter while steering clear of big productions to avoid head-to-head competition with neighbors. The hotel design is being crafted by RTKL's Dallas-based hotel team while the convention center architect is HNTB, also of Dallas. The center will have a minimum 100,000 sf for exhibit space, 20,000-sf ballroom, 27,000 sf of break-out space and 180,000 sf of support space.

Irving's decision to lease space and land to a hotel developer follow a course becoming more common as cities chase innovative ways to fund such projects, based on information in a recent Jones Lang LaSalle hotel report about convention center properties. At the end of the day, Irving officials calculate the economic benefit will be $62 million in direct spending annually, $3.4 million in sales, hotel and property taxes and 100,000 new hotel room nights per year.