Center promoted as economic engine

The opening today of Spokane’s expanded Convention Center is a testament to public support for the convention business – essentially a belief that it makes good economic sense for Spokane.

From Expo ‘74 to the addition today of the 100,000-square-foot Group Health Exhibit Hall on the far end of downtown, civic leaders have promoted the convention business as an integral part of the city’s economy.

“The convention and tourism industry is an extremely important economic force in Spokane,” said Hartly Kruger, former president of the Spokane Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Convention centers themselves rarely make a profit, but they serve an invaluable function by drawing visitor dollars into the city and giving the region exposure that leads to economic growth. By supporting the expansion of the Convention Center in May 2002, Spokane’s voters continued to embrace that civic goal.

Three structures, built at different times, now fall under the umbrella name Spokane Convention Center. The first building, just east of the Opera House, was built for the World’s Fair. The second building, the International Agricultural Trade Center, opened in 1989 and stretches northeast with additional bays and a second floor. And now, the new Group Health Exhibit Hall stands at Division Street and Spokane Falls Boulevard. The Spokane Public Facilities District recently dropped the name Ag Trade Center, though it remains on the building for historic purposes.

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Expo ‘74 delivered the Spokane Convention Center and the Opera House – recently renamed the INB Performing Arts Center – both of which housed the Washington state exhibit during the World’s Fair. The late Spokane businessman Luke Williams, chairman of the Washington state exhibit, promoted the idea of an entertainment complex and managed to secure $11 million from the state to build it, former Mayor Dave Rodgers said.

“The cultural and economic value of that to the Inland Northwest is just tremendous,” Rodgers said. A newly installed memorial to Williams in the Convention Center honors his contributions. “Luke’s the father of the Opera House and Convention Center. There’s absolutely no question about it.”

After the fair closed, the Convention Center, which contained three features – the state’s exhibit, a museum and a Czechoslovakian cinema – was converted to flat-floor space and reopened in 1975. Eventually, ownership was turned over to the city. Mike Kobluk managed the Convention Center and Opera House from 1974 to 2001.

“That was the first major step in the convention business, aside from hotels housing conventions within their confines,” Kobluk said. “Now there was a potential for a real destination, for larger functions.”

In the beginning, however, little emphasis was placed on selling the space, Kruger said. When the city hired him in 1985 to lead the CVB, Kruger said he discovered more of a focus on tourism than on selling conventions. He developed a marketing program to focus at least half the organization’s energy on convention sales and hired a sales manager.

The city was not well-known nationally, and Kruger decided to address that challenge head-on. He went to the airlines and persuaded them to donate tickets so the CVB could fly in meeting planners. If he could just get the planners to Spokane, he reasoned, they would love it. It’s a practice that persists to this day.

The more aggressive operations paid off. In Kruger’s first years in his position, he watched the economic impact related to conventions jump from around $12 million to $20 million, he said. Then following the opening of the Ag Trade Center in 1989, which added more than 20,000 additional square feet, economic impact jumped again, to $80 million a year, Kruger said.

At that time, Kruger and his sales staff began noticing business they could not land because of the lack of space. So the CVB staff picked out 300 national organizations that had said they needed additional exhibit hall space and sent them surveys asking if they’d consider Spokane if it had more room. Those that said yes represented a potential boost in business in excess of $250 million, Kruger said. In 1990, the Spokane City Council designated funds to research expansion.

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Sixteen years later, that expansion is celebrating its grand opening today. Along the way were 13 months’ worth of meetings for the Facilities 2000 group, which researched and wrote a 400-page report recommending the expansion’s size, location, ownership and operation. It recommended that a countywide vote be held on the bond issue that would fund not only the Convention Center, but also would be used to complete projects at the Spokane County fairgrounds and at Mirabeau Park in Spokane Valley.

“Virtually all the recommendations in that report became reality,” said Shaun Cross, former chairman of the Facilities 2000 committee and of the PFD board. “In written form, it brought a united stand on why this should be done and how it should be done.”

The Convention Center expansion is actually made up of several parts:

“The now-complete new Group Health Exhibit Hall.

“An ongoing renovation of the existing Convention Center into meeting rooms and ballrooms that will deliver additional square footage.

“A plan to acquire land south of the INB Performing Arts Center to construct parking and for future expansion.

The exhibit hall, with its boat-like shape, offers 100,000 square feet of space that can be split into five rooms. A glassed-in promenade leads visitors past views of the Spokane River to the existing Convention Center. Trucks can enter the loading dock area directly from southbound Division Street.

Following voter approval in May 2002 of the taxes necessary to build the expansion, local officials approved in July 2003 the financing plan for the Convention Center and other projects. In August that year, the PFD board selected the site for the Group Health Exhibit Hall. In September, the city of Spokane’s ownership of the Opera House, Ag Trade Center and Convention Center passed to the PFD.

The expansion project has had its challenges. Public opposition shot down a plan to buy Azteca Mexican Restaurant because of a clause that would have provided 30 years free rent on city property. (Eventually, the PFD bought the property for a higher price but included no relocation assistance for Azteca.) Board members Walt Worthy and Tom Power joined the board, then quit, voicing concerns about budgetary overruns and a lack of parking. A budget overrun reached close to $9 million and caused months of negotiations between the PFD and its general contractor.

The budget overrun eventually was resolved. The contractor absorbed part of the costs and said it wouldn’t earn a profit on the project. The PFD agreed to cover $3 million of the cost overruns by diverting money from other parts of the project budget. The organization also cut more than $2 million from the overall cost of the project by finding different ways to build the building or selecting different materials. A switch in concrete saved $100,000.

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The project and management of public facilities by the PFD shepherded in a new era in the convention business, with the Convention Center’s bigger size enabling the city to aggressively chase national business.

In addition, harkening back to Expo ‘74, which was the first environmentally themed World’s Fair, the board of the PFD voted to seek LEED certification for the new Convention Center. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design award is granted by the U.S. Green Building Council provided a building meets certain energy-saving and environmental requirements. Though the process generally increases the upfront costs of construction, savings are expected in energy efficiency.

The new exhibit hall’s shape was unveiled in the fall of 2003 after architects struggled to find a design that made best use of the space. With the ship-like structure, designers ended up embracing the curve Division Street makes as it bends southwest into Spokane Falls Boulevard.

“I can’t think of another exhibit hall I’ve been in that isn’t square or rectangular,” said Johnna Boxley, the Convention Center’s general manager.

As contractors raced to finish the exhibit hall on time, driven by the pending arrival of the State Farm U.S. Figure Skating Championships in January 2007, they were blessed with back-to-back mild winters, which eventually helped set the project two months ahead of schedule.

“We’ve built an icon at the corner of a major intersection in Spokane,” said Kevin Twohig, the PFD’s executive director. “It’s a building that will be there for a long, long time and will always have an aesthetic impact on that area. And we’ve done that while building a very high-tech facility and an ecologically friendly building.”