City of Phoenix can’t even unload Sheraton at a loss?

It looms there outside my office window: big, ugly and Exhibit A for why the city of Phoenix should stick to policing the streets and picking up the trash. Instead, the city finds itself the owner a 31-story money sucker — a hotel that is bleeding money, one the city hasn’t been able to unload.

And you wonder why Phoenix can’t afford to hire enough cops?

In 2004, the Phoenix City Council plunked down $350 million to build the state’s largest hotel. The 1,000-room hotel was pitched as the vehicle that would deliver bigger conventions. City leaders already had decided to spend $600 million to expand the convention center but needed a third downtown hotel to attract larger groups.

When no private developer wanted to build the thing, the city didn’t stop and wonder why. Instead, city leaders decided to go into the hotel biz.

The Sheraton Grand Phoenix opened in 2008. Eight years and $28 million in operating losses later, Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton in February 2016 gleefully announced that the city had sold its $350 million hotel to a private investor. For $300 million. “Really, it represents just the incredible positive momentum that we have going on in downtown Phoenix right now,” Stanton said, in announcing the sale. “I think history will show that this was a strong infrastructure investment for the city of Phoenix.”

Me? I think history will show that the city should stick to filling potholes. Of course, Stanton would see this whole city-as-hotelier gig as visionary. He is the only current city official who was on the council in 2004 and he voted to build the hotel.

Now, 14 months after the grand announcement that the city was getting out of the hotel biz, Phoenix taxpayers are still the proud owners of a 1,000room hotel and the Legislature is considering a bill that would ban cities from trying to double as the Hilton.

City officials and the Florida-based investment company supposedly buying the joint, TLG Phoenix LLC, aren’t saying much about why the sale hasn’t closed. City officials are withholding what should be public records from Republic reporter Dustin Gardiner.

My guess? The buyer probably figured out that the hotel isn’t worth $300 million. Not even with the millions the city is willing to toss in for remodeling and the land upon which the hotel sits.

Never mind that Phoenix still owes $306 million on its construction debt. The city’s financial expert estimates the city’s losses will total $45 million to $50 million. That's if this sale closes.

Phoenix Councilman Sal DiCiccio figures the city’s losses will be closer to three times that, when capital losses are added in. DiCiccio estimates the property is worth far less than what the $350 million the city paid to build it or even the $300 million selling price. He bases his calculation on room rates.

“The bottom lines is, it’s worth less than $250 million right now,” he said.

Meanwhile, Phoenix police detectives are now filling in as beat cops. This, because the city is short nearly 700 officers.