McHenry Times

State Sen. Don DeWitte (R-St. Charles) asked Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (MPEA) during the Senate Appropriations Revenue and Finance Committee hearing if they would consider selling hotel properties to reduce overhead expenses.

DeWitte explained that letting go of these properties might be able to ease the organization’s financial challenges.

“How important is the hotel component in your overall operations?” DeWitte asked. “I know it offers ... beds for heads as the tourism industry likes to call them, but from an overall standpoint could those hotel facilities be better operated and perhaps reduce some significant overhead from your agency if you were to look into the possibility of taking those hotel operations, spinning them off to another corporation who may be able to operate them as part of an ongoing chain hotel organization … to try to shore up the significant losses you’ve had this year?”

MPEA owns the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place and the Marriott Marquis Chicago. Larita Clark, MPEA CEO, told the senator that the hotels “have the corporate support of their brand so Marriott supports the Marriott Marquis and Hyatt supports the Hyatt.”

According to DeWitte’s analysis, the agency appears to be going into debt with the state by approximately $200 million. In addition to a $140 million shortfall in MPEA tax revenues, MPEA has requested an additional $55 million from the state for operational expenses. 

MPEA Chief Financial Officer Jason Bormann said the intent for the $140 million is to refinance debt in fiscal year 2022.

The authority is seeking the approval of their budget request which would make “appropriations for the ordinary and contingent expenses of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2021.”