Monday, Jul. 27, 2009

Convention center short on space

Convention center officials consider study of possible expansion

Last week, 8,000 people from the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith jammed the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center and just about every other inch of downtown meeting space.

It was the second-largest convention ever held in the five-year-old center. The largest was the church’s convocation last year, which drew 10,000.

But the convocation could go away after a scheduled 2011 event because the convention center is too small.

“This is the smallest (facility) we have ever dealt with,” the church’s Elder William Wilkins said. “We would love to see an expansion.”

Center officials are considering a study to look into just that.

At 24,700 square feet, the convention center is smaller than the one in Chippewa Falls, Wis., and dwarfed by Greenville’s 315,000-square-foot center.

“If (the study shows) we would get more business by expanding, we would consider it,” said John Durst, chairman of the Midlands Authority for Conventions, Sports & Tourism, which governs the center. “But it’s clearly exploratory right now.”

Statistics show that, since opening in September 2004, Columbia’s small center has been a hotbed of activity, consistently building in revenue and attendance.

Revenues and attendance peaked in 2008 at more than $1.4 million and 249,000, respectively, because of the presidential primaries — a season highlighted by Barack Obama’s South Carolina primary victory speech at the center.

And revenue rose again to a record $1.62 million in fiscal year 2009, which ended June 30 — despite a tanking economy with governments and businesses cutting back on travel.

And in this calendar year, attendance is on track to set a record as well at more than 250,000.

In addition, the convention center generated $51 million in economic impact last year — hotel rooms booked, meals bought, store purchases — on an operating budget of slightly more than $1.9 million, according to a formula used by the S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism.

“The convention center is an economic engine,” Columbia Mayor Bob Coble said. “It was built with the idea of spurring other elements of the economy, and it’s done that. And it’s allowed us to compete for events like the National Hydrogen Conference that we couldn’t have before.”

Ric Luber, the authority’s president and CEO, puts it more simply.

“It’s worked,” he said. “The numbers show that this is a successful building, but we’re leaving money on the table.”

The problem is the size.

Typically, Columbia competes with cities such as Birmingham, Ala., Richmond, Va., and Charleston for conventions. Yet a convention marketing association listing shows that Charleston’s convention center is five times the size of Columbia’s. Birmingham’s is nine times as big.

“It’s easy for meeting planners to say ‘no’ to us simply because we don’t have the meeting space,” said Luber, who indicated 100,000 square feet would be helpful. “We’re out of the ballgame before we even get up to the plate.”

‘A LITTLE STRESSFUL’

While this year’s national Hydrogen Conference & Expo might have been the highest-profile event in the center’s history, it is eclipsed in economic impact by the convocation of the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith.

The hydrogen conference drew 750 in April.

The convocation attracts people from across the nation and 18 countries. It filled up about 2,500 hotel rooms regionwide, surpassed as a single event only by a USC football weekend.

In addition to jamming hotel rooms throughout the region, it scrapes for meeting space in the convention center, the downtown Hilton, the Marriott and the Colonial Life Arena.

“It’s a little stressful having to manage events at all those properties,” the church’s Celeste Johnson said.

Church leader Bishop W.L. Bonner decided to meet here several years ago because the church has a big presence in the Columbia area with a 2,000-member temple, a family life center, a Bible college, a housing complex and a retirement home.

But when not in Columbia, the New York City-based church holds its annual event in cities like Atlanta, St. Louis, Orlando and Kansas City. And Columbia’s limited meeting space has proven a challenge.

Under a contract, the church is to have its international event again in 2011. It could be its last here both because of the size of the convention center and because of the lack of direct flights from other cities around the world, Wilkins said.

“We’ll renegotiate and see what happens,” he said.

‘A TOUGH SELL’

But any expansion plan faces a hard road.

It took years for Columbia, Richland County, Lexington County, Cayce and West Columbia to come together to build the center, as modest as it is.

Regional rivalries and jealousies had to be overcome, as well as a view by some that a convention center wasn’t needed because the Midlands wasn’t a perceived tourism or convention destination.

But statistics show the convention center has been popular with social groups, the military, educational associations, religious groups and fraternal organizations — the so-called SMERFs

There are also political challenges.

Many people feel that the scales of regional cooperation have tipped heavily toward downtown Columbia, said Bob Livingston, Lexington County’s representative on the Midlands authority that governs the center.

About $3 million annual debt service on the convention center construction — which runs through 2022 — is paid by a 2 percent bed tax on hotel rooms in Lexington County and Richland County as well as Columbia.

The two counties also ponied up for the downtown Colonial Life Arena. And Richland County and Richland District 1 pitched in to a special taxing district that paved the way for downtown streetscaping projects, the Three Rivers Greenway and downtown parking garages.

Livingston, a West Columbia insurance agent, said the challenge will be convincing people on the west side of the river and in suburban and rural Richland County that the center has regional benefits.

“All that is going to be a consideration,” he said. “That’s why any study needs to be detailed and something is concrete — to see if expansion is warranted.”

Coble said he would support expansion, but termed it a tough sell. However, he welcomed the discussion, saying a debate over whether to expand the center alone is indicative of its success.

“A lack of space is a good problem to have,” he said.

Reach Wilkinson at (803) 771-8495.

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