Deal paves way for Miami Beach Convention Center hotel

Everybody could use a little extra time to pay their bills every now and again. Miami Beach commissioners approved a memorandum of intent between the city and Miami-Dade County, which would help the county close the gap on a budgetary shortfall. The move would also drive county incentives to the city for a new convention center headquarters’ hotel.

Prior to the memo, the county was to allocate $18 million and $18.5 million in fiscal 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 to the City of Miami Beach. The proposed change extends this payment period by one year, balancing out in fiscal 2021-2022 instead of 2020-2021.

In exchange, Miami-Dade County will set aside $1.5 million yearly for 30 years from available convention development taxes to fuel the city’s eligible convention center tax projects. In addition to the funding, which will begin a year after completion of the hotel, commissioners will contribute the 1 percent resort tax collected from the hotel toward any convention center debt amortization.

County and city commissioners agreed that the rescheduling of payments is dependent upon the execution of all terms within the memorandum. [Miami Times] -Kerry Barger