So the garage won't be needed until some way is found to fund the $43 million hotel/convention center and may cost between $14-20 million to build if it were built today, also from money not currently in sight,  right?

And the City Council authorized spending $700 thousand dollars on this project last week.

Is this anything like the planning and spending that the Eugene City Council has been using on their Taj City Hall?   

Seems similar to me.