Directed by Hoffman Construction and designed by Zimmer Gunsul Frasca, the 25-month project added more than 400,000-sf to the convention center and included renovation of the original 500,000 sf. The convention center now encompasses 907,500 sf, provides 255,000 sf of exhibition space, has two grand ballrooms and offers 50 meeting rooms on its 18-acre campus.
Metro, the regionally elected government that runs the facility, estimates the expansion will result in 2,000 new jobs throughout the Portland region. The total economic benefit of the convention center in the region is expected to increase 30-40% to more than $500 million a year, according to Metro. The construction bonds are being paid off with increased taxes on hotel rooms and car rentals.
What's for sure is that the convention center's expansion has enabled it to accommodate larger convention groups than before or host two mid-sized conventions simultaneously. As a result, the convention center has booked 40 conventions for 2003, compared with 27 conventions for 2002, and has captured six new conventions that would not have come to Portland without the larger facility. "This expansion enables Portland to keep pace with the convention center expansion trend occurring around the United States," notes Matt Pizzuti, OCC marketing and sales director.
The only piece of the puzzle now missing is a convention center hotel. Earlier this month, the executive director of the Portland Development Commission told GlobeSt.com he is confident that the only thing now holding back such a facility is the economy. "Is the demand sufficient today? Perhaps not," says Don Mazziotti. "But I would certainly expect at the end of recession to see the beginning of a convention center hotel facility."
The PDC owns enough land around the recently expanded Oregon Convention Center to develop the requisite 800-room hotel, said Mazziotti, including the dirt beneath the Inn at the Convention Center, a run-down former Best Western hotel across MLK Boulevard from the Oregon Convention Center that it acquired last year for $5.2 million. Mazziotti says the only reason the PDC hasn't already put out a request for proposals is the economy.
"There's no shortage of interest; we have been contacted and continue to be contacted by hotel developers who are anxious to do something across from the convention center," said Mazziotti. "We have not issued an RFP because want to make certain that we don't have a negative effect on market."
According to a city-funded report by Strategic Advisory Group LLC that was released this spring, the ideal hotel would have 800 rooms (500 set aside for conventions) and be connected to the convention center by a pedestrian bridge. Mazziotti says such a hotel would run in the neighborhood of $160 million.
Until it's time for the RFP, the city has Wright Hotels operating the Inn at the Convention Center on a three-year contract. Wright Hotels was interested in the job because it owns a neighboring, 170-room former Holiday Inn hotel that it recently announced it would be making some cosmetic improvements to the property, re-branding it as a Red Lion hotel and planning for an eventual expansion by as much as 350 rooms.
The hotel sits across NE Halladay from the city's hotel and, like the city's property, is located across MLK Boulevard from the convention center. Wright Hotels GM Frank Finneran told GlobeSt.com that one option is to add a 24-story tower on the south side of the site that could hold as many as 350 rooms, given current floor-area-ratio and height restrictions. "We're not sure that's exactly the right idea," says Finneran. "But it's one idea."
Finneran added that it's possible a new tower could be operated in tandem with a new hotel on the Inn at the Convention Center site to create the 800-room hotel the PDC is seeking. "All this is just conceptual," said Finneran. "No T's have been crossed."
Just as Mazziotti said, however, Finneran said the problem with all this right now is the economy: "Right now, given no new incremental increases in demand, there is no financial demand for any of what we just talked about."
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