It's an empty parking lot right now, but soon it will be a City of Dallas owned hotel.

The city council moved forward with plans to build a convention center hotel claiming Dallas needs to remain competitive with other cities for conventions and tourist dollars.

It's a deal worth up to $520 million.

But not everyone is happy about putting out the "vacancy" sign.

The city council's decision clears the way for the city to buy an eight acre parking lot adjacent to the convention center for $42 million and own a 1,200 room hotel.

"We are going to be in the hotel business in Dallas, Texas. And the reason we are going to be there is because we want to be in the convention business," said Councilman Ron Natinsky, who chairs the council's Economic Development Committee.

Dallas follows what other cities like Houston have done by building and owning a hotel and letting a management company run it.

The Dallas hotel would cost about $480 million to construct.

The city would borrow the money and repay it with revenue from the hotel.

Councilwoman Angela Hunt warned if visitors don't come taxpayers will be on the hook.

"How can we possibly know that this $500 million hotel is absolutely positively going to make money from day one," she said.

But the city staff says a $53 million reserve fund would cover losses and that ultimately the city could walk away from the debt.

The full faith and credit of the city's borrowing power would not back the revenue bonds, according to assistant city manager A.C. Gonzalez.

Supporters say the risk is small.

A long line of chambers of commerce, downtown supporters and hotels stood up to support the convention center hotel.

Only the Hilton Anatole, owned by Crow Holdings, opposed the hotel.

"It's not the role of city government to compete with private business," said Anne Raymond, a spokeswoman for Crow.

Still by an 11-2 vote, the council followed Mayor Tom Leppert's lead.

"The city doesn't necessarily want to own it, but it is the tax exempt financing that makes this work," the mayor said. "We are not doing anything different than Denver did, than Phoenix did, that Baltimore did, that Houston has done."

Construction should start late next year and possibly be done for the Super Bowl in 2011.