Mayor Wants Updated Study On Center Plan Talbott Says He’Ll Support Expansion Of Convention Center If Numbers Line Up

City officials who want to expand the Spokane Convention Center need more complete and current figures before they try to sell the idea to a skeptical public, Mayor John Talbott said Tuesday.

Talbott told the city’s Sports, Entertainment, Arts and Conventions Advisory Board that he would be willing to take the proposed expansion “to the next step” of seeking public approval if the board updates a 2-year-old feasibility study and answers the questions about costs and usage that are sure to come up.

“When we get ready to go out and get the vote of the people, … we have to have the same answers and they’d better be right,” Talbott said.

Members of the city-appointed board, which oversees the Convention Center, Opera House and Joe Albi Stadium, asked Talbott several times if he supports the project. The mayor gave them a qualified yes.

“I’ve got to have the figures to say `We can do this and here’s how it will benefit you,”’ he said.

“When I walk in to talk to someone, I need to be able to tell him what it does for him.”

Talbott supports a proposed development plan for downtown Spokane, which recommends expanding the Convention Center, he said.

He doesn’t agree with putting that plan into effect before plans for the surrounding neighborhoods are finished, but he supports the language on the center “just the way it’s written.”

He said he doesn’t have a preference for the size or design of the expansion. Plans call for an $85 million expansion that would add up to 100,000 square feet of exhibit space and occupy a city block south of the current building.

Asked whether the new studies should review those details, he replied, “I would hope not.” Talbott also said the board should hire an independent expert to review the plans and judge whether they will work. The expert should be someone who is not tied to the expansion, so the public will trust what he or she says, he said.

If the board can update its feasibility study and provide solid figures on the economic benefits of a larger Convention Center, Talbott said he is willing to try to persuade the Public Facilities District board, which operates the Veterans Memorial Arena, to take on the project. That’s a key step, because a state law passed this year would allow the PFD to continue some existing taxes that would help pay for the expansion. But some members of that countywide board have been reluctant to expand their role to include the downtown Convention Center.

“If they don’t want to do it, we’ve got a problem,” Talbott said. Some members of SEACAB, as the city’s board is known, expressed frustration with the lack of progress in dealing with the PFD. “We’ve been trying to talk with them,” board member Patrick Jones said. The meeting “has been put off until January.”

Talbott said he would call PFD Chairman Carl Lind to discuss a meeting. SEACAB should also talk to the neighborhood councils, he said.

“We haven’t just sat back and ignored the neighborhoods,” Jones said. But they haven’t been very successful at getting placed on their agendas. They’ve had much more success at making presentations to civic organizations and service clubs.

Talbott said the board will have to convince the voters by “being so up front it’s embarrassing.”

“I’m not going to go out there to anyone and say `Trust me.”’