The proposal would create a marketing team that would represent both the new convention center and the Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention center, located in the Back Bay. Until now the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau has been mainly responsible for booking the new center but Pat Moscaritolo tells GlobeSt.com that he doesn't believe his agency is being pushed out of the process.

"This is not a new marketing plan," he contends. "We are taking Bureau people and MCCA people under one roof and creating an affiliate."

The 516,000-sf center was approved by the state legislature in 1997 but its construction began just as the economy entered a recession. Cost overruns necessitated a scaling back of the plans and the recent terror attacks further hampered its efforts. Perhaps most significant for the center is the difficulty the 1,200-room headquarters hotel being developed by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide has had nailing down financing for its project. The hotel is considered crucial to the viability of the center and the two projects were supposed to come on line simultaneously in 2004 but it appears that the hotel will have difficulty opening by then.