51 replies to this topic

[MDtransplant757]

I'm against building a new arena or civic center with how the city is falling apart financially. Give the kids A/C and heat instead, go for the things that help make the city livable, and if some company wants to build an arena like Nationwide did in the early 2000's in Columbus, I say let them. Outside of that, just make sure to take care of everything else first and taxes go to where they were originally supposed to go (Casino taxes to schools). Stop warring with police officers and find a compromise there so that way we don't have another blackeye when it comes to publicity and bring the awful reputation we have thanks to The Wire and 2015 to a low. 

[BSLChrisStoner]

I'm against building a new arena or civic center with how the city is falling apart financially. Give the kids A/C and heat instead, go for the things that help make the city livable, and if some company wants to build an arena like Nationwide did in the early 2000's in Columbus, I say let them. Outside of that, just make sure to take care of everything else first and taxes go to where they were originally supposed to go (Casino taxes to schools). Stop warring with police officers and find a compromise there so that way we don't have another blackeye when it comes to publicity and bring the awful reputation we have thanks to The Wire and 2015 to a low. 

Convention Center expansion will help generate revenue... so you have additional means to utilize for a range of issues.

[mweb08]

Convention Center expansion will help generate revenue... so you have additional means to utilize for a range of issues.

Maybe in the long-run, but that would obviously require a lot of money spent on it during the short-term.

[BSLChrisStoner]

Maybe in the long-run, but that would obviously require a lot of money spent on it during the short-term.

 

Absolutely true.

[SportsGuy]

Look, we all know how this works.  You don't make money by building schools, giving them AC, etc...Politicians can't line their pockets that way.

 

So, the focus will be on building things that can make money.

 

The question is, will spending it on a Convention Center (or arena or whatever) make enough money for the city to justify the cost?

 

If the answer is yes, you do it and hope that enough money is made that they actually pay attention to things that matter (which probably won't happen but you can hope).  If the answer is no, the discussion should be over.

[MDtransplant757]

Look, we all know how this works.  You don't make money by building schools, giving them AC, etc...Politicians can't line their pockets that way.

 

So, the focus will be on building things that can make money.

 

The question is, will spending it on a Convention Center (or arena or whatever) make enough money for the city to justify the cost?

 

If the answer is yes, you do it and hope that enough money is made that they actually pay attention to things that matter (which probably won't happen but you can hope).  If the answer is no, the discussion should be over.

 

Massive conventions like Ottikan (sorry if I'm totally bungling that spelling) have moved to bigger hotels either in the city, just outside the city or moved to DC. All depends on the revenue, which I would think would make sense to upgrade it. And A/Cs and good schools do make you money more so in the long run, leading to politicans looking like geniuses and the city overall doing better over time. Raises the property value for an area with good schools, brings in a more affluent tax base plus jobs in said neighborhoods would theoretically sprout up. Mainly just going off of basic economic theory, even if it's more Kenesian. Honestly, if we did that and made a valiant attempt at changing the culture for the better amongst urban youth, than we have a chance at making the city a better place. 

[MDtransplant757]

Convention Center expansion will help generate revenue... so you have additional means to utilize for a range of issues.

 

Ins't that what the hotel that blocks the skyline at OPACY's justification? I read somewhere the city loses $50-$100 million on that hotel a year. 

[BSLChrisStoner]

Isn't that what the hotel that blocks the skyline at OPACY's justification? I read somewhere the city loses $50-$100 million on that hotel a year. 

Your information isn't accurate.  After many years of running at a loss, it's just recently become profitable.

However, Baltimore has convention space somewhere around the mid 80s Nationally and losing ground every year.  Just lost one of their biggest annual conventions in the last Month.

[SportsGuy]

Massive conventions like Ottikan (sorry if I'm totally bungling that spelling) have moved to bigger hotels either in the city, just outside the city or moved to DC. All depends on the revenue, which I would think would make sense to upgrade it. And A/Cs and good schools do make you money more so in the long run, leading to politicans looking like geniuses and the city overall doing better over time. Raises the property value for an area with good schools, brings in a more affluent tax base plus jobs in said neighborhoods would theoretically sprout up. Mainly just going off of basic economic theory, even if it's more Kenesian. Honestly, if we did that and made a valiant attempt at changing the culture for the better amongst urban youth, than we have a chance at making the city a better place. 

This will never happen in the inner city....in any inner city.

[MDtransplant757]

Your information isn't accurate.  After many years of running at a loss, it's just recently become profitable.

However, Baltimore has convention space somewhere around the mid 80s Nationally and losing ground every year.  Just lost one of their biggest annual conventions in the last Month.

 

That's mainly what happens when you're right down the street from DC and convention centers near DC and hotels near DC are becoming cheaper than ours. 

[BSLChrisStoner]

BBJ: Visit Baltimore crafts new convention sales strategy
https://www.bizjourn...l_news_headline

 

 

As one of Baltimore's biggest conventions prepares for its last stint in the city for the foreseeable future, local tourism officials are taking a new look at their strategies for selling events.

 

The Natural Products Expo East — which draws an estimated 28,000 people to the Baltimore Convention Center for five days of seminars and food samples — comes to town Sept. 11-14 for one last run in Baltimore before moving to the Philadelphia Convention Center in 2020. Organizers said the expo has outgrown the city's aging convention center and would be better able to keep up with the burgeoning wellness market in Philadelphia's larger venue.

 

Officials with Visit Baltimore, the city's quasi-public tourism agency, say it's unlikely another convention on the scale of the Natural Products Expo will swoop in to replace the loss by next year. Events like the expo, which ranked as the city's second largest convention in 2018 with 14,582 room-nights booked and $12.08 million in economic impact, are usually booked several years in advance.

 

But the tourism promoter is looking at ways to fill in the gaps, Visit Baltimore CEO Al Hutchinson said. The agency started working with local hotels about a year ago to create a road map of goals for convention business in the short and long term.

"We were being very strategic in where we wanted to go to attract new business and the most appropriate business in Baltimore," Hutchinson said.

 

In the short term, Visit Baltimore will work to back-fill its calendar with smaller events that are booked in a shorter time frame. Some of those opportunities might be smaller and regional events hosted by large organizations that the agency hopes to woo for a major convention in the future.

 

Visit Baltimore has created a new express sales manager position to land those events, Hutchinson said. The manager will focus on selling events that generate 10-150 overnight stays.

Many of those smaller bookings are likely to come from the corporate world, which typically has a shorter term booking window.

"The more successful we are in the corporate market, the better we will be in backfilling those dates," Arnheim said.

The sales team also plans to put a particular focus on courting organizations and events that align with the city's major industries, such as the medical, technology and education fields. Arnheim said leaders in those industries can help by encouraging their contacts to host events in Baltimore.

 

A hefty portion of convention business is likely to come from Washington, D.C., which has the largest concentration of associations in the country, and Chicago, which is home to lots of medical organizations, Arnheim said.

Visit Baltimore's goals for this fiscal year include booking 381,500 room-nights and 37 conventions for the Baltimore Convention Center with 800 or more overnight stays — enough to fill hotels in the central business district, leading to a ripple effect called compression, which pushes visitors to book hotels in other parts of the city.

 

In the longer term, tourism officials continue to push for an expansion of the convention center, which was built in 1979 and saw its last major update in the mid-1990s. A consultant's report looking at preliminary design, cost estimates and finance modeling for an expansion is expected to be finished in the fall, and state legislators approved a more detailed round of planning and design for the project earlier this year.

 

A stadium authority report released last summer envisioned nearly doubling the square footage of the convention center, which has 300,000 square feet of exhibition space, 36,700 square feet of ballroom space and 70,500 square feet of meeting space, as well as adding a new, privately-developed hotel to replace the Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel, which would be demolished under the plan.

 

"If and when we can make that happen to expand the center, we know the customers are asking for it," Hutchinson said. "There's no question there are a number of national groups that would love to come to Baltimore but haven't been able to because there isn't adequate room at the moment."

 

Arnheim is optimistic that a convention center expansion could make a big difference for Baltimore. During his tenure in Indianapolis, Visit Indy grew its bookings from 500,000 to 850,000 room-nights a year after a $275 million expansion that doubled the Indianapolis Convention Center's size in 2011. Indianapolis officials are already looking at another $120 million renovation project for the center.

 

"I'm hopeful we will be successful in expanding the convention center here because I've seen what that has done for the community [in Indianapolis]," Arnheim said. "You're able to go after a whole new portfolio of business."

Baltimore, he added, could again be a serious contender for convention bookings, especially with the convention center located so close to the Inner Harbor. Event planners are always looking for venues near mountains and water, Arnheim said.

 

"When we get this expansion... we're going to be dangerous," he said. "The assets of this city, sitting on the water, the Inner Harbor, Fells Point — no one really has it. I think I'm coming into the city at a great time."

[NewMarketSean]

Sounds great. Baltimore has always had awesome logistics. But it’s the leadership that has always held the city back. Hopefully this convention city expansion happens and helps move the city in the right direction.