For years, the Mercure Newport has been held up as one of the city's regeneration success stories.
The transformation of Chartist Tower from a largely vacant office block into a four-star hotel helped change Newport's skyline and became part of the wider story of a city looking to reinvent itself.
Visitors stay there. Businesses use it. It has become one of the most recognisable symbols of modern Newport.
Which is why the increasingly public dispute between Andrew McCarthy's Garrison Barclay Estates and Newport City Council matters far beyond the details of ground rents, consultants' reports and financial agreements.
At first glance, both sides appear entrenched. The council says it has worked closely with Mr McCarthy since 2017 and has already provided substantial support, including a 10-year rent-free period, grant funding and a loan.
It says it has a duty to protect taxpayers' money and cannot simply agree to further financial concessions without a clear business case.
It also disputes claims that a council loan was ever intended to become a grant and says its position on that point has not changed.
Those are legitimate arguments. Public authorities should scrutinise requests involving public money. Residents would rightly expect nothing less.
But the developer's warnings are also difficult to ignore. Mr McCarthy argues that the current arrangements, including a future annual ground-rent liability of £316,800, are unsustainable.
He has warned that the hotel's future could be at risk without a satisfactory agreement and has claimed that key and experienced members of staff have already left because of uncertainty surrounding the business.
Those claims remain disputed and untested, but they raise important questions about what prolonged uncertainty might mean for the hotel and for Newport itself.
The most interesting part of the council's statement was not its rebuttal of individual claims.
It was a single word. "Imminently."
The council confirmed consultants were appointed to consider the latest proposal and acknowledged that an end-of-July completion date had been discussed, while stressing that it had never been guaranteed.
It now says the work is expected to conclude imminently.
Good.
Because after three years of discussions, reviews and negotiations, Newport needs certainty more than another exchange of competing statements.
The real issue is no longer whether the council is right to protect public money, or whether the developer is right about the long-term viability of the hotel. The question is what happens if nobody moves.
A city can survive a difficult negotiation. What it struggles with is prolonged uncertainty.
The council may eventually reject the proposal. It may approve it. It may find a compromise somewhere in the middle.
But one thing is becoming increasingly clear. The longer the stand-off continues, the greater the risk that Newport itself becomes the loser.
And after three years, that is surely a prospect neither side can afford to ignore.
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