What did the City and the Convention and Sports Authority Sell us?
At a recent convention center meeting the committee was presented an operating budget for the first year of operation that shows a loss of over $900,000. What does that mean to you and me? The convention center business has to bring in over $90,000,000 in spending for us to begin to have the tax revenue necessary to pay the shortfall. Over $246,000 in daily spending, spurred by those attending the conventions, has to take place to pay for the operating loss. That figure uses the 1 percent sales tax charged by the businesses that are supposed to be the big winners of conventions.
The Mayor and those who supported the convention center have sold us down the river. Stop and think. What the money we are wasting on the convention center could do for the City of St. Charles. If we had invested the $6 million the City paid for the land the convention centers sits on, in the city’s failing infrastructure, the Council’s concern about sewer capacity would be mute. The $6 million over the next ten years would have paid for improvements on our City streets without the need of outside help. In general an investment should make you money. The convention center is hardly an investment.
Sure it is a pretty building, yes they built it. This is not a field of dreams where “if you build it they will come.” The convention business is highly competitive and the larger markets are adding on. Not to attract more large conventions. They are adding on to get the smaller conventions. Those are the conventions we built our center for. Now we have to compete with Chicago, Vegas and Atlanta.
The “SMERF” market that comprises social, military, educational, religious and fraternal markets brings in cost conscience attendees that do not spend money. So where are we going to get the money to support this center? Simple. They will take it from the City’s coffers. Once again you and I take a back seat to those from out of town.
In St. Charles under York the focus has moved away from the residents to her and those who visit. The fact is, the money we spend to try to get people to visit could actually be used to increase our quality of life. The residents have taken a back seat to the tourism industry. Priorities need to change and that won’t happen as long as York and her crowd control politics.
Recently The Brookings Institution released a study titled “Space Available: The Realities of Convention Centers as Economic Development Strategy.” The author, Haywood Sanders, is a professor in the Department of Public Administration at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Using historical data and actual numbers Sanders paints a picture that looks to place the residents of St. Charles holding the bag on a dream of success in the convention center business. The executive summary states, “The overall convention marketplace is declining in a manner that suggest that a recovery or turnaround is unlikely to yield much increased business for any given community, contrary to repeated industry predictions. Localities sometimes with state assistance have continued a type of arms race with competing cities to host these events, investing massive amounts of capitol in new convention center construction and expansion of existing facilities. Faced with increased competition, many cities spend more money on additional convention amenities, like publicly financed hotels to serve as convention headquarters.” The study can be found at www.brookings.edu/metro and is very informative.
Just think. The doors are not open and already they are projecting a $900,000 loss to the St. Charles taxpayers in the first year.
