From the Niagara Falls Review:
In his state of the city address last year, Niagara Falls Mayor Ted Salci talked up anticipated federal and provincial investments in a convention centre to lure year-round visitors to the city.
With the funding now securely in place – and Thursday’s expected introduction of the new convention centre president – this year’s speech turned to building more hotels to accommodate the crowds of conventioneers expected to fill it.
“The City of Niagara Falls (issued) more than 1,300 building permits in 2007,” Salci told Niagara Falls Chamber of Commerce members at a luncheon at Club Italia Tuesday.
“This reflects an estimated value of construction in our city of nearly $200 million. We have also seen a number of hotel expansions. In 2008, as we look ahead we expect several others to break ground.” Among those projects, he said, are a “major expansion” to the Fallsview Plaza hotel (formerly the Renaissance Fallsview), Dino DiCienzo’s hotel project proposed for the Jolley Cut “and we also have the hotel behind the Courtyard that has been (in development) for a while.”