Expand Columbia convention center to support city’s post-COVID growth, recovery

It has been a decade since I wrote a guest column titled, “Keys to Advancing Columbia’s Downtown Renaissance,’ noting that moving downtown forward would require collaboration, creativity, and consistency.

Since that time, there has been significant progress on all three fronts.

There seems to be endless food and beverage options after a Fireflies game, a movie at the Nickelodeon, a visit to the Columbia Museum of Art, or a Saturday morning at Soda City Market.

There are numerous hotels, apartment complexes, and townhomes opening citywide.

Based on conservative national growth data, Columbia will attract 17.69 million total visitors, including 6.57 million overnight visitors and 11.11 million day visitors by 2030.

On March 17, 2020, restaurants and bars closed dining rooms and the excitement and momentum literally disappeared overnight.

It is normal to feel dispirited, and even a little pessimistic, at a time when we still face significant challenges posed by the pandemic, including overburdened health care, disruptions in labor and production, and rising inflation.

Despite these challenges, there are few capital cities where visitors can experience a lively and fun year-round destination with people, kids, and dogs on the sidewalks, chatting, dining, and listening to music—all served up with our famous sunny weather and hospitality.

The Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center plays an important role in attracting leisure and business travelers through what the hospitality industry often refers to as MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions).

Convention centers generate significant economic impacts through jobs, generating additional tax revenues to local and state governments for the improvement of infrastructure, and attracting facilities like restaurants, shops, and cultural and sporting venues, as well as staging festivals and events that cater to both visitors and locals.

To evaluate the convention center’s economic impact solely on the events that occur within its walls is misleading.

Despite being a highly desirable meeting destination, the data show that Columbia trails regional competing destinations of similar characteristics in total function space, meeting space, exhibit space, and ballroom space.

According to the 2019 Hunden report, the center has lost out on 746 events since 2013. However, this figure does not reflect the convention business that never reached contract status—“space availability” and “too small” have been identified as the top two reasons for losing business.

Based on a survey by analytics firm Knowland (2020), 45 percent of meeting planners expect the number of attendees will return to pre-COVID levels in 2023. In addition, 76 percent of meeting planners are now rebooking meetings.

As we emerge from this difficult period, shake off cynicism, and reach out for our neighbors across social and political lines, it might be useful to think about Daniel Kemmis’ good, old -fashioned notion of “barn raising.”

In Kemmis’ use of the term, neighbors came together to help a neighbor raise a barn, sharing the labor but also affording an opportunity to visit with one another.

Although these neighbors might have different opinions and beliefs, they still worked together knowing that they would enjoy the same consideration when it came time for their barn to be raised.

Eventually, the entire community benefited from this collective civic spirit. The convention center is symbolic of our community, the belief that we have in Columbia as a place to work, live, play, raise our families, and welcome new friends and visitors.

The available data shows that this belief in not misplaced, and that our “barn raising” efforts will be rewarded with significant economic returns for years to come.

The initial stage of collaboration, creativity, and consistency I spoke of a decade ago has earned Columbia an “A”.

However, there is still much work to be done in anticipation of a prosperous civic future where we act as a single community with a single purpose — “barn raising”—and we emerge victorious over COVID-19.

Dr. Rich Harrill is a Research Professor, School of Hotel, Restaurant & Tourism Management at the University of South Carolina, and a member of the Board of Directors for Experience Columbia.

This story was originally published November 30, 2021 at 9:30 AM.