Mayor Sam Adams faces a difficult decision over whether to build a new convention center hotel in the Lloyd District. Portland's Metro Council was ready to drop its pursuit of the projected $247.5 million hotel last December, but then Mayor-elect Adams asked Metro to delay a decision until April 2009 while he assembled a task force of experts to assess the proposal. Blogtown broke the news on Tuesday, March 24 that Adams' task force has recommended Adams move forward with the project, after all.

Quelle surprise. The task force was made up entirely of hoteliers, developers, union representatives, brokers, finance professors, lawyers, and bankers—all of whom would naturally lean toward seeing the hotel get some public financing so any private backers could save money. Then on Wednesday, March 25, the Oregonian reported that The Nines hotel downtown will stop paying back $16.9 million in loans from the Portland Development Commission (PDC) until 2011, because its developer, Sage Hospitality Resources, over-projected demand for corporate meetings and business travel.

The Nines deal was struck under former Mayor Vera Katz, while Adams was her chief of staff. So for him to even consider using more urban renewal dollars from PDC to fund another hotel, now, would seem like the triumph of optimism over experience.

"It's all about cost versus benefit, and I've got to make sure that it's really going to achieve the benefits that the promoters have put forward," Adams said last week, of the proposed hotel.

With the Breedlove scandal still hanging over his head, Adams remains under pressure to prove he can achieve—so a new hotel next to the Oregon Convention Center designed to bring in international business could boost his credibility.

Adams has already made controversial decisions in an attempt to show he can still Get Things Done. For example, he's voted for a costly Major League Soccer deal and a 12-lane commuter bridge across the Columbia River. At the same time, it emerged last week that Adams' office had dropped the ball on a $3 million overrun cost for the city's new payroll system. But is now really the best time to take a gamble on the US economy in the name of showing leadership?

"Portland... affords an ideal window onto the spiral of fear and diminished expectations assailing the economy," wrote Peter S. Goodman in a 1,700-word story on the Rose City in the March 26 New York Times. D'oh! Perhaps Adams needs to hang a brave leader's "do not disturb" sign over the hotel project, for now.