Hotel flag identified for Mason City downtown hotel project

MASON CITY — Mason City officials say a hotel flag has been identified for the proposed hotel that’s part of the River City Renaissance project.

City Administrator Aaron Burnett says in an October 11th letter addressed to city officials, Hyatt Place & Hyatt House director of development Christina Wells says they are excited about the proposed franchise of a Hyatt Place hotel being developed by the city and Gatehouse Capital LLC. “We did receive the letter from Hyatt identifying the Hyatt Place fee and application has been submitted. They’ve been working very closely with Gatehouse, so we continue to move forward on that front.”

Burnett says the city will update the Iowa Economic Development Authority’s board of directors on Friday about the status of the River City Renaissance project.  “The IEDA presentation will happen this Friday, at which point David Ratchie will present on behalf of Gatehouse, I will be there to present on behalf of the city, and we will continue to update them on all the things that we’ve been talking about over the last few months. It’s been awhile since we’ve provided an update to IEDA besides just the staff, and so that’ll give us a good opportunity to give them an update on what’s going on.”

Burnett says Gatehouse representatives will be in Mason City to update the council about the progress of the project at their November 5th meeting.