Letter: Stop change that’s for the worse

The article describing the important issue of the labor shortage of hospitality and restaurant workers for Hilton Head Island businesses is important for a number of reasons.

And that brings me to the proposed 500-room hotel, entertainment complex and convention facility proposed for Bluffton’s Hilton Head National redevelopment project. There is no beach. There are no beautiful, ancient oaks laden with hanging moss or even a water view. One has to ask what would compel a tourist from Ohio to come to Bluffton to stay at a hotel lacking these amenities and paying premium room rates. Could it be a casino?

Where will this massive complex find enough staff to operate? A lack of service workers already exists on Hilton Head Island and our surrounding area.

A committee is being formed. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Let’s talk about it.

A reasonable person would conclude that Hilton Head resorts and restaurants will be even more short-staffed and suffer operationally to the point that some will close as a result of Beaufort County Council green-lighting this massive project. Let’s reduce the island to a collection of cheap and abandoned hotel properties. Maybe this is how we solve the issue of “affordable housing.”

Forget great restaurants. Think drive-through dining. Sit back, Beaufort County Council, and watch the decline and ultimate destruction of Hilton Head’s business and the “Bluffton state of mind.” This one is on all of you.

This story was originally published February 17, 2017 at 7:59 AM with the headline "Letter: Stop change that’s for the worse."