Jul. 25, 2003 - TAMPA, Fla.--An Indiana hotel developer is talking with city officials about building a 400-unit Embassy Suites hotel across Franklin Street from the Tampa Convention Center.

While rumors and speculative plans for everything from a Ritz Carlton to a Hilton have been floated in the emerging Channel District, city officials think this developer has the clout and financial backing to pull it off.

Whiteco Inc., a Merrillville, Ind., company, confirmed Thursday that it controlled the property and has plans for downtown Tampa. Whiteco owns hotels under 14 different brands, including a downtown convention center Marriott in Indianapolis. "This is a company with the track record to do it," said John Moors, director of the Tampa Convention Center. "We think this will be a great addition."

The Tampa hotel and its 280-space parking garage would be operated as an Embassy Suites by Hilton Hotels Corp., which owns the three-star hotel brand.

The site is currently a dirt parking lot just north of the trolley terminal between Florida Avenue and Franklin Street.

It's unclear what the developers will be asking from the city, if anything, because no site plan has been filed. There also may be questions about the developer's plans to build an upscale, limited-service hotel instead of a full-service Hilton convention hotel.

While hotel construction nationally is having a tough time getting financing because of flagging demand, Whiteco officials said they hope to break ground in March 2004.

The developer's name came out at a Thursday meeting of the Tampa Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau, which has been trying to fashion downtown Tampa into more of a convention destination. A study to determine whether the city's 12-year-old convention center should be expanded is expected to be completed next month. A missing ingredient in making the convention center meet its promise, tourist leaders have insisted, is more downtown hotels.

In 1998, completion of the 717-room Tampa Marriott Waterside as the downtown convention headquarters hotel increased the downtown room inventory to about 2,800. The Embassy Suites would push the room count to about 3,200, double what it was a decade ago.

"I think we've got room for 1,000 more," said Paul Catoe, president and chief executive of the bureau. "We're on the cusp of breaking through."

Other officials wanted to hear more details.

"It's good news -- if the demand is there for another hotel," said Gene Gray, economic development director for Hillsborough County.

Demand remains an issue because Central Florida has not fully recovered from 9/11 and a weak economy. In fact, only part of the Tampa Bay tourist industry is having a bang-up summer. While beach hotels in Pinellas County and theme parks have been jammed with leisure visitors as they are every July, the crowds are expected to thin out in a few weeks as school starts.

"I'm hearing that our July is just off the chart," said Carole Ketterhagen, director of the St. Petersburg/Clearwater Convention and Visitors Bureau. "But it's still mostly last-minute bookings. We're advertising heavily in markets where school doesn't resume so soon in hopes we can extend this into August."

Inland, however, business travel is coming back slowly, and the ups and downs of conventions and business meetings have made for a so-so summer at many hotels. The Free Will Baptist church convention that filled many downtown Tampa hotels this week will be replaced by a bigger group with a Gospel music convention this weekend. Yet hotels that fill their rooms mostly with business meetings and conferences consider July and August the doldrums.

"Our July has not been great," said Dick Bonning, president of Saddlebrook Resort in Wesley Chapel. "August doesn't look much better."

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(c) 2003, St. Petersburg Times, Fla. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. HLT, MAR,