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Green Bay City Council to revisit Hotel Northland audit

Posted at 5:19 AM, Mar 08, 2017
and last updated 2017-03-21 06:38:01-04

The Green Bay City Council plans to revisit the decision to wait another 45 days before taking action on the Hotel Northland Project. 

Alderman Mark Steuer wants to reconsider the 45-day wait period at Tuesday night's meeting. 

The council said they have many concerns about the funding of Hotel Northland after the developer's senior lender backed out. 

On March 7, city leaders got an update from Hotel Northland's developers. 

City leaders said the project has suffered several setbacks including the loss of a $12.8 million loan from their senior lender, Huntington Bank. 

A letter from the bank was sent back in November announcing the pulled funds. 

Letters warning of the possibility of developers defaulting on the loan were sent starting back in May. 

Project developers say they believed they had a new bank lined up but the loan request was denied, possibly because of negative publicity and also because it's difficult for a regional bank to give a loan for a half-built hotel. 

Council President Tom DeWane wanted to hire a third-party auditor to investigate the financing of the project. 

In February, the council delayed the audit of the $44 million dollar project so they could have more time to gather information. 

On March 7th, the council once again voted to delay any action. 

According to DeWane, the developers of the project have initiated their own third party audit so the council had decided to be patient. 

DeWane said at that time they were hopeful that after 45 days they'll get the answers they're looking for. 

"We want this project done. There's got to be a guarantee that this project will be done by the end of the year," said DeWane. 

It seems the council is getting impatient, only waiting 14 days before revisiting the topic. 

Developers say the project is about 70% complete and although construction has slowed down it has not stopped. 

The city of Green Bay committed $4.7 million to the project. 

Tuesday night's city council meeting is at 7 p.m. 

The council may convene in closed session to talk about financial data related to the project.