In a continual quest to streamline finances, the City of Irving worked a plan that resulted in tremendous taxpayer savings.
In 2009, the city was planning construction on its 275,000-square-foot Irving Convention Center at Las Colinas. To fund the $133 million project, the City of Irving issued its 2009 Combination Tax and Hotel Occupancy Tax Revenue Certificates of Obligation Bonds Series. In September, the city refunded that series with a new 2017 series.
The purpose of the refunding was to leverage lower interest rates to generate $23.1 million in present value savings (18.4 percent) or $54.4 million in gross debt service savings.
Rating agencies Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s consistently have assigned Irving Aaa and AAA credit ratings over the years, which was a contributing factor to obtaining such significant savings. Irving is one of seven cities in Texas to be assigned top ratings from both agencies.
The city has pledged two-sevenths of its Hotel Occupancy Tax toward the 2017 bonds. The Hotel Occupancy Tax is a percentage paid on each short-term hotel stay in Irving. In addition to the 2017 bonds, the city plans to pay for a portion of the 2017A Bonds from the Hotel Occupancy Tax. The 2017A Bonds were issued in March and are being used to construct the new convention center parking garage.