A developer is proposing a new hotel in O'Fallon. It would be the city's 14th.
The Belleville News-Democrat reports that officials in this city of 30,000 estimate hotel-motel tax revenues will top $2.3 million in 2020. It has 11 hotels. Two more should open this year along Interstate 64.
City Administrator Walter Denton says hotels have always had a role in the city's economy. But he says "we are now using them as a very integral part of our economic development."
The city increased its hotel-motel tax in 2016 from 5 percent to 9 percent. Revenue more than doubled in three years. The money financed eight soccer fields in a park and the O'Fallon Station Pavilion completed downtown last month.
O'Fallon is 25 miles (40 kilometers) east of St. Louis.