A major component to the development of Bowling Green’s tax increment financing district has stalled.

Louisville hotelier Chester Musselman is thinking twice about financing a hotel in Block 12 of the TIF district, an area bound by 13th and 14th avenues and Kentucky and Center Streets.

“Mr. Musselman is not ready to go forward at this point and time,” said Mary Cohron, president of the Warren County Downtown Economic Redevelopment Authority.

It was believed that the deal with Musselman was cemented, despite a 7 percent drop to 48.9 percent in the occupancy rate of Bowling Green hotels.

“Chester Musselman is well aware of what the market is doing right now, so I don’t think that (drop) is going to affect him. He is looking at a very specialized market for the hotel, being adjacent to the alumni center and meeting space,” Cohron said in an article in the Daily News on Oct. 19, 2009.

Calls to Musselman were not immediately returned.

Once the authority has a hotel ready to go forward with building, it will give the land to the hotel. This comes after the City-County Planning Commission approved the plans for the $5.5 million parking garage, which Musselman named as key for him building a Marriott Springhill Suites in Block 12. The authority is paying for the garage with a combination of new market federal tax credits and bonds, according to Cohron. The bonds will be issued as Build America bonds, and the federal government will repay 35 percent of the interest they accrue.

Western Kentucky University has pending plans to construct a new alumni center in the same area, primarily because of the promise of a hotel.

However, if Musselman fails to produce, plans for a new alumni center will move forward, says Donald Smith, executive director of Western’s alumni association.

“A hotel is certainly an added bonus and would be nice to have next to the campus, but it would not affect our decision on the alumni center,” Smith said.

The alumni association has had the funds for the new center for several years, but has needed a location to build. It has chosen Block 12.

Both Smith and Cohron say that Musselman isn’t the only prospect. Cohron said at least one other hotel developer is in talks with the WCDERA, but she wouldn’t name the company because the company is still in negotiations with financial backers.

Cohron also added that Musselman has not yet pulled out of the project.