Proposed hotel has my spidey sense tingling

I am not hearing alarm bells, seeing red flags or smelling something fishy... but my spidey sense is tingling.

According to the (Greensboro, NC) News & Record, there is a "group" that wants the city of Greensboro to give them four acres out of the ten slated for redevelopment at the South Elm/Lee Street area so that they can build a hotel with federal stimulus funds and have the revenue go "into the hands of Ole Asheboro residents..."

This is where the time and reources of the mainstream media (i.e. The News & Record) need to be put to their highest use, as a watchdog on behalf of the public. Questions that need to be answered:

• Who are the principles who will manage the proposed hotel and what is their track record? Have they done this before and how have their previous projects fared?
• What does it mean that the revenue from the proposed hotel will go "into the hands of Ole Asheboro residents?" How?
  
• What will be the criteria for revenue participation and who will be the decision maker? Will the residents' participation in the revenue be through employment or through some other means of profit-sharing? Will people be "in" solely based on the location of their abode? If so, what are the geographical boundaries?
  
• Is it appropriate for the City to make a donation to a for-profit project where a stated objective is to selectively include and exclude participants by some currently vague and potentially unfair criteria?
  
• Are this group's expectations fiscally realistic? Reports thus far mention as the only source of funding government grants. Can and will a project of this size be entirely funded by government funds? If not, from where will additional funding come? Who will underwrite cost overruns or additional liabilities?
• Who will fund the considerable start-up and operational costs beyond what grants may fund construction? Is there a business plan?
  
• How and to what degree are the people who are advancing this proposal vested in its financial outcome?
• Is this the highest and best use of this public land and federal stimulus funds? What other options would be sacrificed for the sake of this project?