The Philadelphia office of PKF Consulting, a firm that specializes in hotel and tourism research, will conduct the study for $115,000, county commissioners chairman Dick Shellenberger said this morning.

Lancaster businessman Robert C. Field has agreed to pay $65,000 of that cost, and the rest will come from county discretionary funds, according to Shellenberger and commissioner Molly Henderson; both voted to hire PKF today.

Commissioner Pete Shaub voted against financing a new study. He said the Lancaster County Convention Center Authority already is “doing the reasonable things to be prepared to proceed with the project.”

Those things, according to Shaub, include an updated marketing study of convention center bookings, a “verification” of the project’s architectural drawings and an examination of the project’s costs and revenues.

“These are three things that the convention center authority is already going to do, and now you’re going to pay twice for them,” Shaub said.

With construction bids due in April, the consultants will not have long to study the estimated $137.8 million project. PKF will begin meeting with officials from the county and the city next week and should have the study completed in eight to 10 weeks, according to Shellenberger.

Shellenberger said PKF’s New York office previously studied the county’s hotel tax and the concession-sales agreement reached by the Lancaster project’s private and public developers.

In its current incarnation, the project includes a 330-room Marriott Hotel and a 220,000-square-foot convention center on the site of the former Watt & Shand department store on Penn Square.

According to a draft of the county’s request for proposals, the study will be completed in two stages. The first phase, due March 30, would examine the financial arrangements among private developer Penn Square Partners, the Convention Center Authority and the Redevelopment Authority of the City of Lancaster.

Depending on the consultant’s findings, phase two would explore ways to restructure those deals or would study further whether the project is financially feasible, according to Henderson.

Penn Square Partners has said it would not cooperate with a new study of the project.

It is unclear whether the Lancaster County Convention Center Authority would be willing to work with consultants on a new study. The authority’s executive director, Dave Hixson, did not immediately return a request for comment this morning.

Hixson has told the commissioners he will ask the authority’s board of directors to cooperate with a new study if it is conducted by an impartial and qualified third party, according to Shellenberger.

Henderson and Shellenberger allege that previous studies did not contain enough financial information and are merely “marketing” studies.

For eight years, city, state and county officials have planned a hotel and convention center on the site of the former Watt & Shand store.

Shellenberger and Henderson, as well as a determined band of project opponents, have fought the effort’s every step — through lawsuits, protests and public meetings. Too much taxpayer money is at stake, they argue, if the hotel and convention center fail.

According to Shellenberger and Henderson, the consulting firm PKF has offices in 10 major U.S. cities and has conducted convention-center studies in Atlanta, Los Angeles and Dallas, among other cities.

The firm is one of the few with the “horsepower” to quickly complete a thorough study, according to Henderson.