Hidden bustle at GWC
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/news/editorial/16793388.htm
From the article:
"The public perception was that the center has about 100 events each year. In reality, the expansion project has allowed the center to be host to 600 events each year."
"Many people wrongly believe the center runs on property tax dollars. The center gets some money from the hotel tax from visitors, but does not get property or income tax money. And tourism officials estimate the activity at the expanded Grand Wayne Center had an economic effect of $30 million in 2006."
"Regardless of how the Harrison Square debate shakes out, convention center leaders want another hotel. Grand Wayne Center officials identified at least 33 groups that chose to hold their convention elsewhere because of the lack of downtown hotel rooms."
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
More Than Meets The Eye
Posted by scott spaulding at 2/27/2007 09:08:00 AM
Labels: Downtown development, Grand Wayne Center
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2 comments:
What a load of crap. Good to see the Journal Gazette continue its time-honored practice of not letting facts, or the absence thereof, stand in the way of shilling for local projects and/or politicians.
600 events in 2006? How does this number square with the information in Exhibit B to the City's Decemeber 21, 2006 RFP to hotel developers? [Thanks again to this website for linking to so much of the minimal publicly available info on this project, including this RFP.] The City told the proposed developers that for 2006 the Convention Center had 150 events, not 600 (including only 18 conventions but an encouraging 3 wedding receptions). Unless the Journal Gazette called it an "event" every time somebody booked dinner for 6 or more at the Hilton, they are making this stuff up.
Or maybe the City screwed up and only told the developers about one-fourth of the actual business at the Convention Center. City officials were pretty busy playing cloak and dagger property buyers for a not yet (publicly) recommended baseball stadium, after all. Quick, somebody get on the phone and call the Marriott people! Maybe we can get back the extra 50 rooms that the City claimed were a "minimum" for this mixed-use, no new property taxes, catalyst project we've come to know and love as "Harrison Square."
For the record, I support the hotel project. It has, though, nothing to do with "Harrison Square" as we have been trying to get a hotel here since the planning for the Convention Center expansion. The presence or absence of an unnecessary, obscenely expensive baseball stadium has nothing to do with the hotel. Some people want to throw the numbers together thinking they can hide the dismally low contribution of Hardball Capital by doing so. That is the ONLY connection.
Mark Garvin
600 events? I see now the city has resorted to all out lying to garner support. I regularly walk through the GWC during weekday hours and I can tell you that I have NEVER seen anything resembling an "event" taking place.
To suggest that there are all these events and they are hidden is an insult to everyone's intelligence.
I'd like to see what it is they're calling an "event". Perhpas pedestrians walking through in order to get to Belmont Beverage counts? Looks like they'll be losing those events soon enough as well...
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