A Cheap Solution To Jax's Convention Center Problem?

[spuwho]

There is ALWAYS someone or some organization pulling up to the public trough trying to suck up some taxpayer dollars. If all these ideas are so worthy, why can't anyone find any private financial backing? If the private sector won't back it, why should taxpayers?

Because the private sector measures in different terms than the public sector. If all public projects deemed "worthy" had to pass a private finance litmus test, many public items wouldn't exist. Yes, there is too much pork driven feeding at the trough, but there is also a problem with public underinvestment.

Con centers can be viewed as a public infrastructure investment if it is scoped and sized properly relative to the regional needs.

The issue of many of the pork driven con centers across the US is that mismatch of scope and size relative to its market. Big con centers are great until meeting planners find out that their aren't enough hotel beds within a 10 mile radius of the facility. They will gladly walk away to a higher psf charge if they can attract more people through easy access to beds nearby.

Politcos overestimate how con centers will drive new hotel construction. But if they can't get "big ones" due to lack of beds and they can't get enough small to midsize due to pricing, then yes, it will sit empty 90% of the year.

So if Jax embraces a new con center, I don't care if they if they dip into the trough, if and only if,  it is sized appropriately for our market and located in and near the beds.

[tayana42]

An unknown little town in Kentucky has a gorgeous new convention center that outpaces Jacksonville?  I say, build it.  Great idea.

[UNFurbanist]

Looks like there are some more serious talks about what to do with the convention center. I am personally a fan of using the old courthouse site and returning the current location back into a train station. Could be a bit of a catalyst for the bay st. area/The Elbow if they do it right, although I agree with Delaney on the point that 200 mil. could be better spent somewhere else. Interesting stuff.

http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=545678

[thelakelander]

"At some point it's ripe," Delaney said in the post-meeting interview. "The question is if you had $400 million for economic development, is the convention center the best place to put it?"

Delaney asked whether the money would be better spent in port development, at the proposed Shipyards project or in other infrastructure.

If I had to pick and choose, I'd probably go with a decent, well placed and designed convention center over the Shipyards. Nevertheless, if we had $400 million to play with, I wouldn't toss it on any single project. Combined with the Hyatt's existing facilities, we should be able to make a $100 million space work. That would be the outlook I'd take on all of these projects needing public money. Find a way to significantly slash the cost on single projects to spread the money out to get multiple things off the ground simultaneously.

[Tacachale]

I might pick a (well designed and integrated) convention center over the Shipyards, until we really know what we're getting with the Shipyards. Or divvy it up like Lake said, and do a lot of smaller projects and improvements that have been neglected. Unfortunately from what I hear there may not be much in the way of money in this budget, it sounds like a real mess.

[For_F-L-O-R-I-D-A]

That site at the annex makes a lot of sense. However, you are locked in with not much of an ability to expand on that spot.

[jaxjaguar]

Saw this mentioned in another thread so I figured I'd try to bring it up in a more relevant one...

Has anyone considered turning Regency Square into a convention center? It's got more than enough land. The building is in fairly good shape and would just need to be gutted. You could tack on a hotel or two where the Anchors are. Add in a music hall, keep some shops and restaurants. There's more than enough parking and if a garage was put in you have a ton of land you could reclame for park space or something. It would definitely help out a struggling area and isn't too far from downtown.

[remc86007]

^ I'd be against it simply because I think we need to have the convention center downtown. The hotels are already there and it is far more "walkable" and would, in the near term at least, give a better impression of Jacksonville for travelers than directing them to Arlington.

[FlaBoy]

It is certainly an interesting thought for sure to repurpose Regency. It is a lot of space, over a million square feet but the lack of hotels and lack of an intriguing features in walking distance.

This becomes an interesting discussion again with the parking deck being taken out.

Why can the meeting rooms above the parking garage next to the Hyatt not be expanded? It is such a waste of space there.

Also, if you did attempt to use the Annex space differently, could you keep the tower intact?

Any way to just repurpose the Courthouse for convention space?

With the new amphitheater and nearly 100,000 sq footage of space at the practice field, and the rumors Khan wants a hotel at Metro Park, I imagine a convention component will be part of the discussion over there especially with the additional space of Everbank and the Arena also nearby.

[thelakelander]

^If you added an exhibition hall on the courthouse site (assuming you wanted to preserve the annex building), and connected it via a skybridge to the Hyatt's meeting room floor, you'd have a convention center with a 1,000 hotel in the heart of downtown. This is about the most logical and affordable way to resolve the convention center issue. Converting Regency into a convention center is impractical...plus it's largely leased out already and adding something near the stadium is just as impactful on downtown as leaving it where it is today.

[JHAT76]

Aint nobody coming to no damn convention at Regency Square Mall.

Truth

[FlaBoy]

^If you added an exhibition hall on the courthouse site (assuming you wanted to preserve the annex building), and connected it via a skybridge to the Hyatt's meeting room floor, you'd have a convention center with a 1,000 hotel in the heart of downtown. This is about the most logical and affordable way to resolve the convention center issue. Converting Regency into a convention center is impractical...plus it's largely leased out already and adding something near the stadium is just as impactful on downtown as leaving it where it is today.

For sure and I agree. I think you would probably need some public-private partnership of another hotel or Hyatt addition and some vertical development to make it worth it on that site. At the same time, I doubt Shad Khan said this off the cuff:

"We have, across (the street), a great opportunity for a high-end hotel/convention center, which this town really needs," Khan said at the groundbreaking. "It's something we'll try and work with the city on. As you move toward downtown, the city is wrestling with a lot of challenges environmentally. As that's addressed, you can really have growth. It's absolutely important."

http://jacksonville.com/metro/2016-11-11/mayor-curry-eyes-met-park-possible-site-riverfront-development-tandem-shad-khan

If this is the route they are going to go, I would hope that much of that would be planned as close to DT as possible (towards the property line where the Fire Museum is)to maybe help get Doro really off the ground. Khan definitely has a way with the Mayor and he wants a first class facility for an NFL Draft first, and I think another Super Bowl in a decade. I went to a convention in ATL that incorporated the Georgia Dome and Phillips Arena a lot. It was definitely cool and people were impressed by that. You could potentially do the same thing here with the Amphitheater, IPF, Stadium, and Convention Center.

[thelakelander]

^Khan's statement doesn't mean mean much IMO. "High-end hotel/convention center" could very well be something totally different from the role the Prime Osborn is supposed to serve. For all we know, he could be mentioning the need for a high end hotel with meeting space. Not necessarily a traditional convention center with a +100,000-square-foot exhibition hall.

[FlaBoy]

Very true.

Lake, what about just redoing the space above the garage for the Hyatt? It would seemingly make a lot more sense to use the space more wisely that is already there and that is not a wise use of space right on our riverfront.

[thelakelander]

^That space isn't conductive to the design and needs of an exhibition hall, plus doing so only reduces the amount of meeting space the Hyatt currently has.  An exhibition hall is essentially designing a big box like Walmart or Target. It's cheaper to build one from scratch and connect it to Hyatt's existing ballroom, meeting rooms, hotel rooms and restaurant spaces, as opposed to building an entirely new convention center complex (ex. new ballroom, meeting rooms, hotel rooms and an exhibition hall, etc.).