Hilton Effect on Buinsess

A comment on yesterday's post has me wondering what effect the downtown Hilton has had on downtown business. Putting in the Hilton caused a couple of downtown businesses to move and converted a section of downtown parking to Hilton patron parking. Granted the lost city parking was seldom more than half filled, save on special occasions but the parking for the Hilton is usually half empty as well. The city says that eliminating paid parking had no increase on sales tax revenue, and hence sales, from the downtown area. Tax revenues generated by the Hilton are certainly larger per person, due to the hotel tax,  than are sales tax revenues from other businesses in downtown but by how much.

It would also be interesting to find out how visitors to the Hilton spend their time in Carbondale. Three reasons often cited for getting a hotel in downtown were for the convenience of parents visiting their children at SIUC , for the convenience of families with patients at Memorial Hospital and for visitors disembarking from the train, who would not need to call a cab or other transit service to get to a hotel.