Denver throws the wraps off its newly expanded Colorado Convention Center this
week.
It’s a massive venue expected to host 1.5 million visitors a year, boost
the city’s economy and jazz up its skyline.
Not only has the expanded center brought new soaring glass atriums to Denver’s
downtown, but city officials expect the building to draw waves of
conventioneers–dentists, fire chiefs and cancer researchers alike–to nearby
shops, restaurants and hotels.
Denver officials hope the $310.7 million project–which roughly doubles the 14-
year-old center’s size to 2.2 million square feet–keeps the city competitive in
landing lucrative events.
‘We have built a building that will allow Denver to really be in the top 10 of
convention destination cities,’ said Jack Finlaw, the city’s director of
theaters and arenas. ‘We’re really excited that we’re going to fill this space
with new and larger conventions, which of course will have a great economic
impact for the city.’
How great?
City and convention officials estimate the expanded venue will
generate $273 million in annual business and support 8,900 jobs. But many
observers will be watching to see if the center lives up to that promise.
Former Mayor Wellington Webb said the expanded convention venue keeps Denver
competitive with its peers, but it will not put the Mile High city in the same
league as Las Vegas, Orlando, Fla., or Chicago.
‘It still doesn’t get us to the top tier (in terms of) hotel rooms and
convention space, like Chicago,’ Webb said. ‘But what this does is allow us to
compete for conventions for our market level.’
It’s certainly a step up from its smaller predecessor. The new convention
center–constructed over 2.5 years–includes a 14-acre exhibit floor, a 5,000-seat
auditorium and a covered light-rail station, and bold architecture that
distinguishes it on the Denver skyline.
Events marking the facility’s debut include current and former city officials
honoring the venue on Monday. And on Thursday, the convention center will host a
free open house for the public with entertainment, art and food.
After the parties, it’s down to business. In its first year, the center will
host events related to the NBA All-Star Game, a Christian Booksellers
Association gathering and a conference of the International Association of Fire
Chiefs.
Even so, some want sustained proof that the center will achieve the potential
proclaimed when voters approved it in 1999.
‘We’ll never be on the level of an Orlando or Las Vegas in terms of attracting
conventions,’ City Councilwoman Kathleen MacKenzie said. ‘But it remains to be
seen whether this expansion is going to result in more conventions coming to
Denver or whether we would have done better to stay at the size we were.’
Others are confident the expanded center will create windfalls for the metro
area. Richard Scharf, president and chief executive of the Denver Metro
Convention & Vistors Bureau, said six of the events scheduled in the next year
could not have fit in the old venue. Those events will yield an estimated $110
million in business for the area, he said.
‘The expanded convention center is an economic engine that is going to deliver
the goods over a long period of time,’ Mayor John Hickenlooper said. ‘It’s a
workhorse.’
That’s what voters believed when they gave the go-ahead to that workhorse five
years ago.
In the mid- and late 1990s, cash-flush cities touched off a wave of convention-
center expansions. Fearful that Denver would fall behind, city officials and the
visitors bureau began campaigning for an expansion of the existing space. The
push encountered little opposition.
The council opted to put the issue to a vote of the people, who subsequently
gave their nod. Specifically, voters approved selling excise-tax bonds to be
paid off with portions of the city’s hotel tax, prepared food and beverage tax,
and taxes on car rentals. The project’s initial $268 million tab grew as city officials opted for
additions, the largest requiring $10 million to buy and raze the adjacent
Terracentre office building to make way for an auditorium. That, and add-ons
such as the covered light-rail stop, ultimately boosted the project’s price by
dozens of millions of dollars.
Such inflation troubled former Councilman Ted Hackworth. The council’s noted
fiscal conservative at the time, Hackworth said he preferred that the city set a
price for the project and make additions much more difficult to enact.
‘I guess my problems all stem from the fact that we made it easy for people to
add on,’ Hackworth said. ‘And we would have been a lot better off if we had
restricted their ability instead of encouraged it.’
Construction of the expanded convention center began with a groundbreaking
ceremony on April 29, 2002.
Yet another difficulty for the project came with opposition to the center’s
1,100-room hotel. Trade unions argued that the city should require many of the
jobs at the hotel to be union posts. The Webb administration disagreed. And Webb
insisted that the hotel and the expanded convention center be built together or
not at all.’
You can’t do one without the other, because then it becomes questionable as to
whether it made sense to appropriate that kind of money to a convention center
without having hotel rooms with it,’ Webb said. ‘You can’t bring in a large
convention without the rooms.’
Eventually, the city and the unions reached a compromise aided by Councilwoman
Elbra Wedgeworth. In March 2003, the council voted 8-4 to approve plans for the
$374 million hotel adjacent to the convention center. The building is slated to
open in December 2005.
Meanwhile, the expanded convention center will take the spotlight this month.
John Adams, general manager of SMG, the firm contracted to operate the
convention center, has few doubts about its potential.
SMG books events for the venue with 18 months or less of lead time, while the
convention bureau books larger events further out. Adams predicts annual growth
of business at the venue in the range of 5 percent to 7 percent.
‘The revenue stream is coming back,’ Adams said. ‘We’re getting more requests to
tour the facilities. We’re having a great deal more contracts being signed for
the facility with the Convention & Visitors Bureau. We’re beginning to see
increased spending from our customers.’
Only time will tell whether the convention center will make good on its promise.
Until then, it is drawing accolades.
‘It’s a convention center for the 21st century–no question,’ said Fabby
Hillyard, a former director of the city’s theaters and arenas division.
Said Wedgeworth, now the council’s president, ‘Regardless of whether you’re from
here or out of town, you’re going to walk into this facility and say, ‘Wow, this
is great.’ ‘
Staff writer Kris Hudson can be reached at 303-820-1593 or
khudson@denverpost.com.
