Built on $100 million in surplus funds and $171 million in bonds that will paid off by $2 an hour parking fees, is our new 540,000 square foot supercenter the silver bullet that will save Hartford from the economic werewolf that has feasted on downtown for the past 50 years?

Before we get giddy and declare an end to the war on poverty, let's follow the money.

Each of the 2,350 parking spaces at the center costs $20,000, according to Capital City Economic Development Authority spokesman Dean Pagani. That means cars must rent those spots for 10,000 hours or 1,250 days (averaging an 8 hour/$16 day) to pay off the debt.

Already, groups have rented the center for 200 days over the next year, Pagani said. If the CCC sells out for those days, and lives up to long-term (yet outdated) KPMG usage projections, we'll pay this puppy off in a little under seven years.

Pagani had no report as to how many hotel rooms have been booked for those 200 convention days. A crucial measure of the convention center's success as an economic engine is the ratio of attendees to hotel nights booked, according to Steven Malanga from the Manhattan Institute.

"The Javitt's Center [in New York City] has a 37 percent ratio of attendees to hotel rooms booked, Malagna said. "At the really successful ones, in Orlando and Vegas, 90 percent of people who come to shows at those convention centers are actually staying in those hotel rooms."

If people aren't staying in hotels, then the economic impact is limited and almost negligible, Malagna said.

Yet as long as conventioneers park their cars, we can unburden ourselves of debt.

Our bond debt is financed over 25 years, Pagani said. The KPMG forecasts for the faciltity's viability started in 2000 and covered through 2005. Pagani, who served in Convict Rowland's cabinet during the conception of this Convention Center, said 2010 was never a thought. Forget 2040.

"We haven't even opened the building," Pagani said. "The first test was "Is there a market for it?'"

Apparently, KPMG and their peers in the consulting industry consider that the booming convention center industry can support edifices in Boston, New York City, Providence, Worcester and Springfield. Or maybe not.

"I'm sure not betting on the numbers that KPMG forecasts," said Professor Heywood Sanders of the University of Texas-San Antonio.

Having studied urban redevelopment long enough to remember that the Jai'lai Fronton was going to save downtown Bridgeport, Sanders spoke more knowledgeably about Hartford's policies than most locals (see www.ctnewsjunkie.com for the full interview I did with Sanders).

"The strategy that Hartford is employing in seeking to attract conventioneers to the city from some distance is precisely the same strategy dozens of others of cities around the country are pursuing with what are often very, very mixed results," Sanders said.

While cities like Las Vegas and Orlando win big in the convention sweepstakes (promoted by the federal government by making the income investors receive on those parking lot bonds tax-free), most cities lose.

When convention centers fail to meet their promise, cities throw more money at the problem, said Malagna. It's a never-ending cycle (from Constitution Plaza, to the Civic Center Mall, to Rowland's Six Pillars, etc).

"The hottest trend is to build subsidized hotels next to these convention centers," Malagna said. "The logic is ‰ðûThe reason the centers are failing is that there isn't a hotel in the first place.' Baltimore is one of the places this is going on."

Hartford hopefully won't enter the hotel management business because our convention center already features a privately-owned and operated Marriott. The Waterford Group, according to Pagani, received a no-bid contract from Rowland's office to manage the hotel and convention center. At the end of three years, the contract comes up to bid, Pagani said.

For 2005-06, Connecticut's legislature is debating a $5.5 million grant to CCEDA to fund the Convention Center, Pagani said.

If we paid that $5.5 million directly to the 70 people employed by this structure, they would all take home $79,000, a likely raise for many who will fill low wage concession and janitorial jobs.

In other terms, Weaver High School has an annual budget of about $12 million. The state will pony up half of Weaver's budget to create a place in Hartford for outsiders, but plays tough with education budgets.

CCEDA has no timetable as to when taxpayers will stop subsidizing the convention center, Pagani said.

Aside from regular reporting from CCEDA about its success in generating out of town conventions, I want a timetable as to when taxpayers will stop funding Rowland's criminal legacy. Internal Revenue Service timelines allow a start-up business five years to take losses before it shows a profit. This is a reasonable standard to judge the Convention Center.

If after five years the legislature still pays the operating budget, then we must consider adaptive re-use of the Convention Center. Prudent contingency planning should begin now.

Hartford could lead the country in adaptive re-use for the Convention Center (apartments, a school, a factory floor?). No other city that Heywood or Malagna knows of has had the politicians with the guts to acknowledge that shiny, big-box developments fail to stop the loss of economic activity from downtown.

Since we can afford such publicly-financed boondoggles only once a decade, we must confront the reality that other solutions - like investing into education and poverty reduction - must be tested.

6/1/05

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The strategy that Hartford is employing in seeking to attract conventioneers to the city from some distance is precisley the same strategy dozens of others of cities around the country are pursuing with what are often very, very mixed results.

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Familiar Folly, Different Decade

The strategy that Hartford is employing in seeking to attract conventioneers to the city from some distance is precisley the same strategy dozens of others of cities around the country are pursuing with what are often very, very mixed results.