Five Drastic Steps To Revive Downtown Jacksonville

[ChriswUfGator]

Drop by Three Layers tonight, we can discuss and I'll answer whatever questions you have.  I have some things I need to attend to.

I can certainly discuss this in person, and would enjoy it, but given that the article was posted publicly, I'm interested in a public discussion of the reasons that would justify its conclusions. It really distills back down to this basic and unsupported "build it and they will come" philosopy that one only finds in an urban planning context that is disconnected from the business realities and what that entails. You cannot just go *poof* and create a viable market with just a building. It doesn't work, as all available evidence shows.

And I find that people routinely compare apples and oranges to justify these arguments, as you did when you used San Diego as your example. San Diego actually proves the exact opposite of your premise, as they developed the convention business organically and then later built the building once they had sufficient demand to justify it, and this prudent approach led to their success, the same as ignoring that prudent approach will lead to our failure.

[ChriswUfGator]

Vic.

I owned a restaurant in downtown while the convention center was having conventions.

In order to work with the convention center you have to pay an annual 500 dollar fee, so that you can have the privilege of bidding against other people who also had to pay the 500 dollar fee for catering.

The jobs usually go to the catering companies, none of which were based in downtown Jacksonville.

Hotels are for anything that has to possibility of putting asses in beds, even if it means taking a systemically lower profit margin.  

Ask the hotels whether or not they would prefer that the Visitors and Convention Center were required to book whole conventions in their hotels instead, and see which option they would choose first.

Is the CVB going to forbid convention goers from eating in your restuarant?

The hotels cannot host conventions of the size.  The get the business they can but they can't compete on the higher tiers.  The pie would not just be divided more times, it would grow much bigger.  That is the whole point.

Do you honestly think that if a major sized convention center went on the current courthouse lot, that the Landing, Bay Street, the Hyatt, the Omni, and eventually (with proper planning by the CVB and the city) Laura Street would not see a quantum increase in business?  

No, there would be little to no increase in business, because the Convention Center itself would be as empty as the rest of downtown. For the 364,567th time, the reasons that people do not come here have little to do with the building.

[thelakelander]

Drop by Three Layers tonight, we can discuss and I'll answer whatever questions you have.  I have some things I need to attend to.

I can certainly discuss this in person, and would enjoy it, but given that the article was posted publicly, I'm interested in a public discussion of the reasons that would justify its conclusions. It really distills back down to this basic and unsupported "build it and they will come" philosopy that one only finds in an urban planning context that is disconnected from the business realities and what that entails. You cannot just go *poof* and create a viable market with just a building. It doesn't work, as all available evidence shows.

And I find that people routinely compare apples and oranges to justify these arguments, as you did when you used San Diego as your example. San Diego actually proves the exact opposite of your premise, as they developed the convention business organically and then later built the building once they had sufficient demand to justify it, and this prudent approach led to their success, the same as ignoring that prudent approach will lead to our failure.

Cool.   Unfortunately, I can't sit around and go in circles online all day.  Later tonight, I'll go back and answer the questions that deal with connectivity and clustering complementing businesses together and how a convention center can be a part of that puzzle.  I'll leave all the curve ball national convention/Vegas/Orlando talk that has nothing to do with these core urban revitalization principles up to someone else to debate.

[vicupstate]

Jax has already paid for a convention center hotel and Bay Street and the Landing.  It already owns the land too.  The cost is $100mm, not 400mm.  Let's deal with the facts, for starters.  

If Charlotte lands the Democratic National Convention, which will utilize their Convention Center and it's hotel, the economy impact will be $150mm.  That ain't chump change, and the media exposure ain't nothing to sneeze at either.

I'm not saying that a Convention center is necessary Priority ONE at this time.  But there has been NO evidence provided in these threads, that leveraging a Convention Center in the same way that San Diego, Charlotte, Indy, Baltimore, etc. have done, could not work in Jax.    

[ChriswUfGator]

Jax has already paid for a convention center hotel and Bay Street and the Landing.  It already owns the land too.  The cost is $100mm, not 400mm.  Let's deal with the facts, for starters.  

If Charlotte lands the Democratic National Convention, which will utilize their Convention Center and it's hotel, the economy impact will be $150mm.  That ain't chump change, and the media exposure ain't nothing to sneeze at either.

I'm not saying that a Convention center is necessary Priority ONE at this time.  But there has been NO evidence provided in these threads, that leveraging a Convention Center in the same way that San Diego, Charlotte, Indy, Baltimore, etc. have done, could not work in Jax.    

How do you know the convention center would be $100mm? Source/Link please...

[Clem1029]

Chris...in reading your convention center posts over a few threads, can you clarify something in your position for me? Do you hold that Jacksonville doesn't need a convention center period, or that what we currently have is more than sufficient?

[BridgeTroll]

Does anyone have actual verifable stats regarding P.O. visitors?  There seems to be quite a misrepresentation of the number of events and their size.  Clearly the Boat show, car show, home and Patio show... to name a few... can not be hosted at the Hyatt nor the Omni.  I have been to all three of these and they are pretty well attended.  There are a few "lesser" events that Hyatt nor Omni could handle.  

I see 21 events scheduled for this year... in a poor facility... in an abandoned part of town... connected to nothing.

http://www.jaxevents.com/primeosborn.php

[vicupstate]

Most conventions provide no  more than one meal per day in-house, if they provide any meals.

If someone is coming from outside of Jax, they aren't going to know your reputation eihter way, but they can walk across Bay Street just the same.  

The Hyatt cannot handle a convention of the size I am speaking of.  If they could, why did they basically fund the candidate (Weinstein in '03) that wanted to build a convention center next to them.

Exactly how is it that the Gator Bowl can pack the Landing, but a similiar sized Convention would not?

[ChriswUfGator]

Chris...in reading your convention center posts over a few threads, can you clarify something in your position for me? Do you hold that Jacksonville doesn't need a convention center period, or that what we currently have is more than sufficient?

I think, at most, we need maybe a medium/small sized civic hall without all of the buerocracy and string-pulling that exists with a contract-managed convention center, where the service industry downtown doesn't benefit from it and the profits are made by out of town corporations. Let the private market host the events presently at the convention center, and have a civic auditorium for the public speeches and whatnot.

The Hyatt presently has facilities sufficient to host the events scheduled for the Prime Osborn, and is about bankrupt (like the other downtown hotels) because there isn't enough revenue. Closing the Prime Osborn would provide a revenue source to the Hyatt, which would provide convention services that we don't have to pay for as taxpayers, and then we get the added benefit of being able to reopen the train station.

It's a win on multiple levels, and won't require the taxpayers to continue funding a convention facility that is in direct competition with the private Hyatt facilities that we already also paid to build, with the result that both are failing at taxpayer expense.

[ChriswUfGator]

Exactly how is it that the Gator Bowl can pack the Landing, but a similiar sized Convention would not?

This is so simple you had to know the answer before you asked the question.

Answer: The stadium actually attracts people because an NFL team and well-known college teams play there. So there is an attraction, that doesn't carry over to convention centers. Until an NFL team starts playing inside the convention center, I think you're unlikely to see this particular apple start tasting like an orange.

Secondly, even the stadium is a pretty large failure when you analyze it. It doesn't pay for itself, and is supported by a variety of special taxes. And the only reason we have the Jaguars is because of ridiculous taxpayer subsidies, and even then we routinely suffer blackouts in recent years, even after them pulling out multiple seating sections, because not enough people attend the games.

[BridgeTroll]

The Hyatt presently has facilities sufficient to host the events scheduled for the Prime Osborn,

Really?  Boat show?  Car show?  Home and Patio?  Really?

http://www.jaxevents.com/primeosborn.php

[ChriswUfGator]

The Hyatt presently has facilities sufficient to host the events scheduled for the Prime Osborn,

Really?  Boat show?  Car show?  Home and Patio?  Really?

http://www.jaxevents.com/primeosborn.php

The boat show would actually be better off at the Hyatt, since in recent years most of the boats are at the in-water portion that's not at the Prime Osborn anyway. You could tie up the boats in front of the Hyatt, or put in some floating docks, it would actually be a lot better because it would all be in one place then. So you're totally wrong on that one. Regarding the car show, sure, that could be hosted at the Hyatt and Landing, and the Home and Patio show also. Let me ask you this; How many visitors do you think these shows attract?

[BridgeTroll]

Those are TWO different boat shows...

[BridgeTroll]

Let me ask you this; How many visitors do you think these shows attract?

Good question.  Does anyone have real verifiable numbers?  The three I listed seem very well attended.  Boat shows are so popular we get two downtown every year.

[vicupstate]

At 200,000 square feet, the exhibit space in the Tampa center is the size that Jacksonville planners say would be ideal for the First Coast. That would allow the local convention and visitors bureau to solicit 85 percent of the convention market; with the 78,500 square feet at the Prime Osborn, the bureau can go after only 10 percent of the market, bureau chief John Reyes has said.

Steve Hayes, executive vice president of the Tampa Bay convention bureau, said Tampa has looked at doubling its exhibit space to 400,000 square feet. The project is estimated to cost from $111 million to $125 million.

http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/053107/bus_173777883.shtml

Tampa was getting 200,000 SF for 111-125mm.

Tradeshow Week ranks the Prime Osborn Convention Center 172nd nationally in exhibit hall space behind smaller cities such as Corpus Christi, Texas, Deluth, Minn., and Lafayette, La.

Space limits and/or lack of an adjacent hotel have cost Jack- sonville at least 38 meetings and conventions since 1998, according to the Jacksonville & the Beaches Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The projected economic impact that got away: $56 million.

The city hosted 284 events last fiscal year. But the CVB estimates Jacksonville's limitations confine it to competing for about 5 percent of the potential U.S. convention business -- and that could be an optimistic figure.

http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/041205/opi_18451618.shtml