Aurora not approving new hotels for six months.

Got an idea for a new hotel in Aurora? City officials don't even want to hear about it unless it comes complete with 200-300 rooms 30,000 square feet of convention space.

Alderman Tuesday night enacted a six month moratorium on development, construction or remodeling of anything less than a full-service hotel with a convention center.

Recent market studies show the city can support an additional 200 hotel rooms to be built. Officials fear allowing anymore "limited service" hotels to open would drive away any developers interested in bringing a larger full-service hotel to the city.

In an ironic twist, Sue Voss, executive director of the Aurora Area Convention and Visitor's Bureau has been the most vocally supportive of the temporary ban.

"It is hard for a convention and visitors bureau to say no to hotel rooms but we've talked about what we wanted and we owe it to ourselves to explore that possibility," Voss said. "We should stop and evaluate what's best for our city. Do we want the ice cream cone now or will we wait for the bicycle later on?"

Representatives from other local hotels including Randy Keller, general manager of an Aurora extended stay hotel and Wilda Torgrim of Midwest Management Group also spoke in support of the moratorium. Not enacting the temporary ban, they said, would create a saturation of the market.

"If the goal is to build a convention center and bring in those rooms, having an addition hotel would definitely put a damper on that I'm guessing," Keller said.

One local developer, Lee Fry, 825 N. Cass Ave. in Westmont, however said the moratorium would cause he and his family "a tremendous economic loss without any warning."

Fry currently has a 93-room Hampton Inn project, slated along Rt. 59 near the Meijer development, going through the city's planning and zoning processes. The moratorium would put a temporary end to that development and cause him to lose his financing for the project.

"I've been working here and developing beautiful buildings in Aurora for 10 years," Fry said. "But with this project, to date, we have spent upward of $400,000 and that money is totally out the window."

Several alderman apologized to Fry for his predicament but approved the moratorium to prevent it from lowering the city's demand from 200 rooms to only 107.