The new, expanded Colorado Convention Center is a dramatic
structure and should become another of the city’s crown jewels.
We just hope it’s not a $310 million white elephant.
Think about it: What if we expanded the convention center and no
one comes?
City convention promoters already are saying they don’t have enough
money to market the new digs, which now stretch out to 2.2 million
square feet. And marketing will be key since dozens of other
mid-sized cities are in the midst of building new centers and
hotels or expanding old ones.
Just building it doesn’t mean they will come.
Denver has trouble right out of the gate competing with big-time
convention cities, such as Las Vegas, Orlando and New Orleans. So
it’s about competing with other cities, such as Cincinnati and
Austin, and their new digs.
“The biggest issue we have is getting the word out,” said Richard
Scharf, president of the Denver Metro Convention & Visitors
Bureau.
Money for marketing Colorado has been woefully low for years, but
it seems that with a $310 million building in the works, someone
should have pushed for a steady funding stream – a possible lodging
tax hike? – years ago. Perhaps this could have been broached in
1999, when voters approved $268 million in bonds for the
expansion.
The project ended up costing $310 million, with the city filling in
the gaps with leftover seat-tax revenue from the long-gone
McNichols Arena, among other places, and by essentially mortgaging
the nearby Denver Fire Station.
And now there’s no money to market it? Convention officials also say it will take at least four to six
years before the new expansion and neighboring hotel (now being
built) are fully scheduled out and really pumping money back into
the economy.
It seems hard to believe that it’s not already booked, since we’ve
known for five years that it would be built. But officials say
big-time conventions won’t schedule until the building is
complete.
Well, let the scheduling begin.
After the original phase of the convention center opened in 1990,
it helped revitalize downtown. Overall, downtown is booming
compared to 1990.
We hope the new expansion spurs business development in some of the
sagging areas near the convention center, particularly along 15th
Street.
The previous convention center was only about six years old before
officials starting talking about needing a new one. If it takes six
years to get this one fully scheduled, here’s hoping talk of a new
center won’t come for at least another 10 years.
Marketing will be the key to filling up the hotel and luring
lucrative conventions to town. It’s clear just building the
convention center isn’t some magical economic development bullet.
