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Could It Happen Here?
New Haven might profit by
following in Providence's conference-center footsteps?
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Business New Haven
2/21/2000
By: BNH
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Both are old New England cities of the “second tier” (that is, not Boston). Both are university towns with strong medical industries. Both have suffered from distressed downtowns and economic doldrums. Both have heard years of talk about building a conference and/or convention center. Both have also felt vigorous resistance to actually building such a facility in the center city.
The difference between the two: Today, Providence, R.I. is the proud home of a 137,000-square-foot convention center right next to the Providence Civic Center in the heart of that city's downtown. The facility brings some 230 events to the city each year, and is a catalyst to the revival of its downtown (dozens of new restaurants have sprung up and are doing well) and of its hotel industry (today boasting the highest occupancy rate in the country, compared to ten or 15 years ago, when it wasn't even on the map).
In New Haven, on the other hand, a downtown conference center is still just a topic of conversation. Will the Elm City follow in Providence's footsteps? Should it?
There has been talk of putting a conference center in downtown New Haven for a long time. The idea dates back at least to the 1960s, when Veterans Memorial Coliseum was built. There is a large open space under the parking garage across from the Coliseum that was intended eventually to house a conference center. “It's been talked of ever since I've been at the bureau,” says Karolyn Kirchgesler, who came to the Greater New Haven Convention & Visitors Bureau two and a half years ago.
The arguments in favor of a conference center are strong ones. “It's a natural fit with the medical community here, the research that goes on, the biotech industry,” says Barbara Lamb, director of special projects in the city's development office. “It's at the crossroads of I-95 and I-91, and of course there's the academic community.”
John McGinn, director of sales and marketing for the Rhode Island Convention Center, notes that Brown University has brought his facility six to eight conventions in the last several years. “They've been priceless,” he says. “Yale is going to bring an enormous amount of business to you.”
Another point Kirchgesler and Dave Greco, the CVB's director of sales, make is that the city loses out on a tremendous amount of business every year because of inadequate meeting facilities. “There have been groups whose business we've had to turn away because we didn't have enough space,” says Kirchgesler.
Among the groups that considered New Haven as a venue, but which the city was forced to turn away or not bid on because of the lack of sufficient meeting space are the National Association of Corrosion Engineers, Antique Advertising Association, Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, the G.E. Capital Information Management Leadership Program and Neighborhoods USA.
“There's a lot of business the city doesn't even attempt to bid on because we don't have the facilities,” adds Greco.
“Connecticut has a dearth of large conference facilities,” adds Ed Dombroskas, executive director of the Connecticut Office of Tourism, noting that the state currently ranks 49th among the 50 states for conference facilities.
“It's a generally held concept that this is something that is needed,” says Kirchgesler. Both Lamb and Kirkgesler note that they haven't heard any negative feedback about the idea.
The need for a new facility has become even more pronounced since the Omni New Haven Hotel opened and since the CVB stepped up its efforts to attract new business to the city a few years ago. “We've had the Omni two years, and already we're running into situations where their space is already booked,” says Susan Adler, director of conference services at Yale, who says she's surprised at how quickly the demand for the Omni has grown.
“We also have run into situations where the Omni couldn't accommodate all our needs,” says Adler. “We have twice in the last few months had to have faculty change the dates of conferences in order to accommodate everyone.”
Kirchgesler notes that now that her bureau is aggressively pursuing new business, they have become more aware than ever of the number of larger conferences that could be bid on if they could be accommodated.
Kirchgesler notes that all of the marketing studies that have been done on New Haven's downtown and how to revitalize it have “either mentioned or alluded to a conference center.”
Just what kind of a facility are people talking about? “We're looking at something not quite as large as a convention center,” says Greco, who estimates the size of an adequate conference center at 150,000 to 200,000 square feet. “We want to do exhibits, trade shows. We would need rooms for workshops, a large banquet hall, but probably not an auditorium. We have [existing] auditorium venues.”
The first phase of a feasibility study is currently being done by Conventions, Sports & Leisure, a Minneapolis firm. One of the main issues to be addressed in this phase of the study, which is targeted for completion by sometime this spring, is possible locations for a conference center.
“We've always thought of the second floor of the Chapel Square Mall,” says Greco, noting that a central downtown location is most desirable, and pointing out that the Temple Street Garage could be used for parking if the Chapel Square location were selected. Other possible sites will also be investigated, however.
The question of how a conference center might be funded will not be addressed until the second phase of the study - which is contingent on favorable results of the first phase of study. Most likely funding would be a joint effort of the city of New Haven, Yale, the CVB and Town Green Special Services, speculates Kirchgesler.
The issue of funding is likely to be the biggest obstacle to forward movement on the proposal. McGinn notes that the Providence complex, which included a hotel and parking garage, as well as a convention center, cost $350 million.
“That was a tough pill to swallow,” he says. “It was an incredibly difficult process politically. It took the people 15 years to get it going and done.” McGinn cautions that whoever might take the lead for a similar project in New Haven must have “a lot of courage and a lot of character.”
Some questions have also been raised about possible competition from the new convention center currently getting underway in Hartford. The convention center at Adrian's Landing is part of the overall Hartford development program. Currently, the state legislature has to make a decision regarding funding its portion, which will be contingent on private funding being secured. (There will be municipal funding as well.)
“I certainly believe Connecticut has tremendous potential for making conference centers a success,” says Dombroskas, who foresees no problem with competition between a Hartford and a New Haven center. “You have to look at it from the perspective of the groups [who book conferences]. They are continually looking for new places to visit, so there's a rotation that goes on.”
Providence's results are any kind of a barometer, New Haven would have much to gain from proceeding with such a project. McGinn reports that not only has his city's center brought a tremendous number of out-of-towners in (“We're making a lot more money than we ever anticipated in our ballroom and meeting room area”), but that it has brought many local residents back downtown as well.
The center hosts between 20 and 25 public shows a year. “The public loves to use the building. It opened up the downtown to a public who wouldn't come down any more,” he says. The end result has been a big boon to the local economy. “The convention center was the catalyst to a lot of things, to a lot of the economic development that's happened.”
Providence just recently opened a new $400 million mall nearby, connected to the convention center by a skywalk. “The mall's already doing what it said it would,” McGinn notes.
McGinn points out that even T.F. Green Airport in nearby Warwick has been doing well since that convention center opened in 1993 - with a little help from low-fare carrier Southwest Airlines. “It's become a convenient, low-cost alternative to Logan.”
New Haven is not Providence, and no two cities are exactly alike, but the experience of our neighboring state capital certainly bears looking at as the question of whether to build a conference center is debated.
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