$48 Million Hotel Plans Unveiled For Downtown Racine

RACINE, WI — Citing a need to add more hotel rooms in Downtown Racine in order to support attracting more conventions to the area, city officials and a developer unveiled plans to build a $48 million, 173-room Sheraton Hotel and convention center in Downtown Racine.

Flanked by state legislators Van Wangaard (R-Racine), Greta Neubauer (D-Racine), Robert Wittke (R-Caledonia), Bob Wirch (D-Kenosha) and others and Gatehouse Developer David-Elias Rachie, Racine Mayor Cory Mason laid out the proposal and the legislative journey that would need to be made to make the hotel a reality.

Mason said the hotel would be constructed on the existing Festival Hall parking lot and connect to the 1980's-era convention hall. The city would own the entire first floor of the hotel - effectively adding 10,000 square feet of additional convention space to the area. The new facility would add new meeting rooms that are a convention staple, Mason indicated Friday.

But before that can happen, Mason said state lawmakers have to sign off on the project, because it falls on land that had long ago been reclaimed from Lake Michigan - and subject to some specific state rules.

"The City of Racine was given three Lakebed Grants from 1917 to 1963 for this area, so to update the uses for this purpose, we would need the legislature to update that statute to give us clear authority and the developer clear authority to move forward on this site," Mason said Friday.

Lakebed grants were passed by state legislators at various points of the 20th century. The grants pertained to land that was previously submerged along the shoreline of Lake Michigan, reclaimed and converted into dry land. The lakebed grants gave the state the power to specify how the land would be used, typically setting rules that the land was to be used for public purposes.

Mason said Gov. Tony Evers office was aware of the project, and that the collection of Republican and Democratic legislators gathered in City Hall were on board with making Racine's convention ambitions a reality.

Local legislators went on to say that Racine's effort to pass a new bill to update the lakebed grants could be used as a model for other municipalities.