Texas A&M’s Conference Hotel to Contribute Revenue to Brazos County and College Station
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Texas A&M System Chancellor John Sharp, acting at the request of Brazos County Judge Duane Peters, has agreed not to seek an exemption to the hotel occupancy tax at the new Conference Center Hotel across from Kyle Field.
“Judge Peters believes, and we agree with him, the hotel will attract so many out-of-town visitors that it should provide a new revenue stream to the community,” said Chancellor Sharp.
The Conference Center Hotel is one of several public-private partnerships coming online, including the retail-hotel-apartment complex Century Square that will add up to $300 million of taxable property to the tax rolls when completed. The land where Century Square is being built was tax-exempt because it was home to married student housing.
“For the first time in history, Texas A&M is putting property on the tax rolls instead of taking it off,” said Judge Peters. “Under the law there are ways Texas A&M could have kept Century Square off the tax rolls but chose not to. Never before has the A&M System been so community-minded.”
Two new hotels at Century Square also will collect hotel occupancy tax.
In addition to Century Square, the Texas A&M System recently opened Park West student housing and is renovating the main terminal and building a new general aviation center at Easterwood Airport, which serves the region. For Century Square and Park West, the A&M System paid to install the utilities and infrastructure, not charging the city of College Station.
Overall, five public-private projects alone are expected to add $1 billion of revenue to Texas A&M for classrooms and labs over the life of the projects. After the ground leases expire, the improvements revert to Texas A&M.
Public-private partnerships are a financing mechanism that is being used on services as varied as providing daycare for employees’ children to research labs to the planned Data Center at RELLIS campus.
“Without public-private partnerships, many of these projects would not be built,” said Judge Peters. “We wouldn’t have the job growth, including the benefit of thousands of construction workers shopping at local businesses, or these new revenue streams for local government.”
About The Texas A&M University System
The Texas A&M University System is one of the largest systems of higher education in the nation, with a budget of $4.2 billion. Through a statewide network of 11 universities and seven state agencies, the Texas A&M System educates more than 148,000 students and makes more than 22 million additional educational contacts through service and outreach programs each year. System-wide, research and development expenditures exceeded $972 million in FY 2016 and helped drive the state’s economy.
Contact: Laylan Copelin
Vice Chancellor of Marketing and Communications
(979) 458-6425
(512) 289-2782 cell
lcopelin@tamus.edu