Miles Sebold, Hutchinson’s economic development director, said the city revisited public assistance for the long-running Jorgensen Hotel redevelopment after the developer provided more detailed cost information. "We increased it from 792,000 up to about $1,170,000 to help make the project work financially," Sebold said.

Sebold said the project was placed in a redevelopment tax-increment financing (TIF) district in late October and that the City Council reviewed the project again on Dec. 9 to reconsider the level of assistance. He described TIF as a mechanism in which the additional property tax revenue from a redeveloped property is used to return funds to the developer; "it's not public tax dollars, it's really developer tax dollars that are being used," he said.

The developer is planning a new 40-room hotel at the corner of Main Street and Washington. Sebold said the developer has purchased the Cook Jewelry building and that Cook Jewelry will close by Dec. 31. "Once the Cooks are done, demolition is actually gonna get underway here very shortly," he said, and added that major demolition and site preparation work are expected in January and February, with the "wrecking ball" arriving early next year.

Sebold outlined why the aid changed: redevelopment of older downtown buildings carries higher acquisition, cleanup and site-preparation costs than building on a greenfield site, and public assistance is sometimes necessary to make downtown projects financially viable. He said the city and developer have an agreement in place and that coordination will be required with the Minnesota Department of Transportation as part of the site work.

The next procedural step, as described by Sebold, is demolition and site prep followed by construction once the site is cleared. The transcript does not specify final construction timelines, financing detail beyond the TIF amounts mentioned, or a completion date for the hotel.