Details: What city staff has proposed is a reimbursable grant with a 50% required match by the hotel, and a minimum $10,000 investment, according to city documents.

• Eligible expenses include exterior renovations like paint and signage upgrades, lobby improvements, guest amenities like swimming pool improvements and room renovations.
• Merriam would reimburse a hotel — which must be code compliant and current on taxes and business licenses to qualify for the grants — between $5,000 and $250,000, under the current proposal.
• The $1 million set aside for the hotel grant program would come from a one-time transfer of money from the city’s general fund to its transient guest tax fund.
• The four hotels that could use the program, it it’s ultimately approved, include the Extended Stay America, Hampton Inn Suites, Hotel Lotus and Quality Inn, all of which are clustered near each other at I-35 and Shawnee Mission Parkway.

By the numbers: Though revenues from the city’s transient guest tax and sales taxes from the four hotels had been declining before the COVID-19 pandemic, city officials say that trend accelerated over the past two-and-a-half years.

• The annual transient guest tax revenue — a 7% tax applied at each of the city’s four hotels — in Merriam declined by 24% from 2017 to 2021, Jennifer Jones-Lacy, assistant city administrator, told the city council at its meeting Sept. 26.
• Jones-Lacy said the total hotel industry revenue in Merriam declined by 17% from $8.8 million in 2017 to $7.3 million in 2021.
• At the same time, there has been a 57% increase in police calls for service at these four hotels since 2015, Jones-Lacy said.
• Police calls for service at these hotels in 2021 accounted for 5% of all non-traffic calls, according to city data.
• Revenue from taxes support the city’s visitor’s bureau and economic development, special events like Merriam Drive Live and the farmers’ market, as well.

Key quote: “We hope that you see a pretty fast turnaround or improvement of those (revenue) rates, but what we do know — and I didn’t necessarily mention this earlier — is that this is an industry that was specifically called out by the federal government as one that has suffered as a result of COVID,” Jones-Lacy said in response to a quesiton from Councilmember Jason Silvers about when the city would see a return on investment. “In our community, that is definitely true. It has received the most negative impact from the pandemic from an economic perspective. On that note, it makes sense to try to bolster this industry so that it can help support a lot of the things that make Merriam so great.”

How Merriam hotel grant program would work

If approved, then the program would begin in 2023.

• It would be an online application with reviews and approvals from city staff including the visitor’s bureau director, city administrator and assistant city administrator.
• Staff would “meet with each hotel to answer questions and discuss the application,” according to city documents.
• If a grant is approved, then the work must be completed and receipts must be available before a reimbursement goes out.
• The project is finished once the funds are gone, according to city documents.

What happens next: The city council did not take any formal action on the hotel grant program at its Sept. 26 meeting.

• Jones-Lacy told the city council that staff hopes to bring back a final proposal for formal consideration at a later date.