Mark Hamister, the health care and hotel magnate, who once took a flyer in the storage locker business, and attempted to own a major league sports franchise, may soon become familiar to Niagara Falls taxpayers as the owner of a hotel, to be built at the corner of Rainbow Blvd. and Old Falls Street.

The 0.88-acre lot where the hotel is to be built is owned by the city. It is 300 feet from the Niagara Falls State Park, with its 8 million annual visitors.

Instead of trying to sell this valuable parcel, or get someone to develop it with his own money, the RFP called for giving the parcel to a developer and paying him to develop it.

Hamister was chosen through a secret process conducted in secret meetings with literally three men in a room: State representatives Sam Hoyt, (Empire State Dev.) and Chris Schoepflin (USA Niagara) and Mayor Paul Dyster.

The three men picked Hamister from among seven proposals for the development for reasons they have not disclosed, nor have they disclosed the terms of the deal or other candidates’ offers.

Hamister’s first successful business venture was a senior living company he founded in 1977.

In the early 2000s, Hamister invested in two arena football teams – the Buffalo Destroyers and the Rochester Brigade. The Rochester Brigade ceased operations following the 2003 season. The Destroyers moved to Columbus, Ohio, before ceasing to play in 2008.

Hamister branched into hotel ownership in 2004, founding of the Hamister Hospitality Group. The company bought a Fairfield Inn and a Sleep Inn near the Nashville, TN., airport, then acquired three small hotels in Nashville, Knoxville, and Louisville, KY. In 2006, Hamister’s company bought five hotels near the Pittsburgh airport, bringing to 10 the number of Hamister hotels.
The Niagara Falls hotel, if it is built, will be a first for Hamister and his company in that it is being built from the ground up.

The Reporter questions whether the city needs another hotel, since the city’s 3,200 hotel rooms are never at capacity except during perhaps two-dozen days during the entire year. There is no true supply and demand for a hotel, which is why public money is needed.

Taxpayers subsidizing this hotel will in effect take other hotels’ tax money to subsidize a competitor in an already saturated market.

We question the wisdom of having government officials who never developed anything with their own money deciding in secrecy what to do with a multi-million dollar public asset.

Have Dyster, Hoyt or Schoepflin ever developed a single job as private sector businessmen? Do they know anything about what it takes to succeed in the private sector that qualifies them to decide which proposal is best?

If this lot was privately owned, it would be sold for millions and someone would pay millions to develop it.

Ask yourself this question: What other place in the world would pay millions to give away a building lot that is 300 feet from an attraction that draws 8 million tourists every year?