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Efforts renewed on hotel project.

Article Excerpt
Growing increasingly weary of long-stagnant plans for a 1,200-room convention center hotel, the majority owner of the Staples Center is floating an alternative proposal with city and union officials that would still require public participation but leave developers paying much of the tab.

The proposed hotel is seen as essential to revitalizing the city's decimated convention business--as well as to serve as a pillar for a retail/entertainment complex envisioned by the Staples owner, Anschutz Entertainment Group. But funding plans have been stalled by litigation involving the city and county, along with reluctance by local officials to help fund a private development at a time of such fiscal hardship.

AEG officials would not disclose details of its new funding scheme. But based on interviews with local officials and developers, it is believed that AEG, which owns the land being considered, would finance construction of the estimated $300 million hotel. In earlier proposals, AEG would have leased the land to a separate public entity that would have issued bonds to finance construction.

A key facet of the new plan, however, would involve public incentives or tax subsidies to service the debt on the...

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