Special Series: "When Pigs Fly" This is a collection of articles on the facts, problems and issues other communities are having with their current or planned Conference/Convention Centers. Task force working to sell residents on civic center Can task force members convince the community to pay for a civic center? Outsiders advise Ocalans on project OCALA -- Directors of other civic centers have plenty of advice for those eyeing a civic center in Ocala. On some matters, their advice is simple: Don't do what we did. Rick Taylor, director of the Hattiesburg (Miss.) Lake Terrace Conference Center, strongly urges the Ocala group to get answers to basic questions. Hattiesburg officials didn't early on and faced opposition. "It was a fatal mistake for us at first,'' Taylor said. "The main council member who opposed the project had three questions: 'What it will look like? How much will it cost? Who will it serve? 'The public wants to know.'" Taylor said one of the reason Hattiesburg officials didn't immediately consider those questions was because they rushed in an attempt to take advantage of the favorable bond market. After regrouping, the Hattiesburg group emerged with more information and drawings to give people a feel of what was being proposed. "Most people are curious," Taylor said. "They aren't in opposition, they just want to know.'' One of the things the Hattiesburg group did was have a market analysis conducted. The analysis revealed several things including the fact almost half of the restaurant sales were generated from diners outside the area, often on travel. Taylor points to that statistic and the area's 2-percent tax on restaurant and alcohol sales as well as a 2-percent bed tax, or tourist development tax. He suggests the Ocala group work to pass a bed tax and/or a tax on restaurant or alcohol sales to generate a funding source for the civic center. Elliott Falcione, director of the Manatee Civic and Convention Center, echoes the suggestion to pass a bed tax. "With the way Ocala is growing and the number of people who visit, this is absolutely the way to go,'' Falcione said. "The tax does a lot to pay for the facility.'' However, Falcione cautions the Ocala group against building a civic or convention center and then not having a plan to maintain it. He also warns them against saying they will build a civic or convention center and promising that it's going to make money. "It (the civic center) is going to be good for the community, yes,'' he said. "But don't make promises you can't fulfill." Falcione said the Ocala group needs to ask what are they are trying to accomplish with a civic center and what is it going to do for the community. He points to the Manatee center, with its low ceiling and no on-site hotel, as examples of why there is a need to determine and identify the target markets. Manatee is now pursuing trade shows and business meetings. Allen Johnson, director of the Lakeland Center, said the Ocala group should look at hotels. In Lakeland, an AmeriSuites hotel opened next to the center in January. Allen Johnson said the hotel was next on the list of priorities following the expansion in 1997. "Few hotels are built in downtown areas and they are not publicly funded so it was a trying process,'' Johnson said. "But a hotel was the missing piece of the puzzle for us.'' Johnson said over the last 11 years, the civic center met with several hotel groups to try to get a facility. The hotel offers limited food service and has 128 rooms, though Johnson said he wishes the hotel were even larger. Valerie Reilly, manager of the AmeriSuites, said weekday corporate clients are the mainstay at the hotel, which is just minutes from downtown Lakeland. The hotel's weekend traffic is dominated by events taking place at the civic center. Taylor said although the Hattiesburg Lake Terrace Convention Center is on a corridor close to hotels and restaurants, it is still a goal to have an on-site hotel to serve as a host location and then have visitors span out into the rest of the city for accommodations. "A hotel (on-site) will create more demand for the center,'' Taylor said. Johnson said the Ocala Civic Center Task Force has visited the Lakeland Center twice. He said he encourages the group to hire a consultant. "They need to look at what the needs of outside visitors and businesses are versus the area residents','' Johnson said. Johnson also stressed that location and budget are key points when considering a civic or convention center, as is hiring the right architect. "I would also advise them to spend as much on automation to put in a fiber-optics system,'' Johnson said. "(Technology) is not going back, but forward.'' Other tips Johnson gives the Ocala group is to consider building a theater at the facility. However he would not suggest construction of an arena because the area would then compete with Gainesville and Orlando for arena bookings, as Lakeland does with Tampa Bay and Orlando.

Three civic centers give Marion backers examples of what works

Centers of attention

BY HARRIET DANIELS - 02-27-1999

Three civic centers in three southern towns offer Marion County Civic Center supporters and foes a good look at what works and what doesn't. Lakeland, Palmetto and Hattiesburg, Miss., are three of the eight cities Marion County's Civic Center Task Force has gathered information about or visited in order to find a model that may work here. The three centers were also visited by the Star-Banner.

Other cities and civic centers the task force is studying include, Florence, S.C.; Gallatin, Tenn.; Germantown, Tenn.; Kissimmee; and Kenner, La.

The civic centers in Lakeland, Palmetto, and Hattiesburg, Miss., vary in age, size and usage, but their directors agree on at least one point: Civic or convention centers themselves are not money-makers.

"What you have to look at is what money do they bring into the community, from an economic standpoint,'' Elliott Falcione, director of the Manatee Civic and Convention Center said.

The Lakeland Center in Lakeland, which opened in 1974, is the oldest and largest of the three facilities and is patterned after the civic center in Monroe, La.

The center's arena, named for Publix's founder George Jenkins, seats 10,000 in concert seating, 8,000 in reserved seating, 7,000 for basketball games and 6,000 for hockey games.

The Youkey Theater seats 2,186. Capacity in various rooms in Sikes Hall Conference Center and the exhibition area varies depending on the type of event. Sikes Hall Conference Center has 24,600 square-feet of space while the exhibit hall has 28,000 square-feet of space.

An on-site hotel also opened in January 1999.

When the complex was built in 1978, construction costs totaled $25 million.

Allen Johnson, director of the Lakeland Center, said the center has gone through many changes over the years from the type of events booked there to a property face-lift completed in 1997.

In the mid-1970s, the then-Lakeland Civic Center was the only arena between Tampa and Orlando to stage large concerts. However when the SunDome at the University of South Florida opened along with the Orlando Arena in the late 1980s, booking large concerts in Lakeland became a challenge.

Concerts had previously accounted for 70 percent of the the Lakeland Center's schedule. With the arrival of the competitors, concerts accounted for 20 percent.

"It's a matter of economics. Shows are going to go where they can get the most tickets,'' Johnson said. "For a city this size, Lakeland's center was way ahead of its time when the center was built.''

In 1997, The Lakeland Center emerged from a $20 million renovation project with its new name and a 28,000 square foot exhibit hall.

The Manatee Civic and Convention Center, which opened in 1985, is the smallest of the three facilities visited by the Star-Banner.

With a total of 56,000 square feet, the facility includes a 32,400 square-foot arena and 15,000 square-foot conference wing with seven meeting rooms.

Falcione said the original plans for the facility were scaled down from a 8,200 fixed-seating arena to a 3,200 fixed-seating arena when the $20 million projected budget was trimmed to $10 million.

In 1985, construction costs for the Manatee Civic and Convention Center were $3.2 million.

"The city did not want to go to the community to ask for money to build the center. They felt it was not right," Falcione said.

Several problems plague the Manatee Civic and Convention Center. One of the most obvious is that the facility is playing catch-up after eight years of lack of maintenance.

Falcione said although about a $100,000 is budgeted each year to upgrade the facility, "it's a slow and frustrating process."

"You have to evaluate the building and spend $100,000 for repairs wisely.''

Although located on Hwy. 301/41 in Palmetto, across from the Manatee River on donated land, the facility is surrounded by residential areas with little business development nearby. Falcione said a marina is being planned for land across the river and is hopeful the development will have a positive effect on the convention center.

The Hattiesburg Lake Terrace Convention Center in Hattiesburg, Miss., opened last July with construction costs of $16 million and an additional $1 million for a 35-acre land purchase.

The 68,000 square-foot facility includes a 17,700 square-foot exhibit hall and 26,762 square-feet of meeting space.

Richard Taylor, director of the Hattiesburg Lake Terrace Convention Center, said the facility's big attraction is that it can accommodate a variety of events.

The Hattiesburg facility is easily accessible from the rest of the of the state, especially the Gulf Coast area where large casinos are a major attraction. Taylor said at first the consensus seemed to be that the gaming industry would pull a major chunk of tourism and conventions from other regions like Hattiesburg. But they are finding their worst fears are not being realized.

"In fact it has had a positive effect on us," he said. "Groups like social groups, military, religious and fraternal organizations are drawn to us because we are not in the casino area."

Located at the intersection of Interstate 59 and U.S. Hwy 49 near the city's northern limits, the Hattiesburg Lake Terrace Convention Center was built in response to the growing demand for meeting space and to "attract new dollars into the city.''

Taylor said the main purpose of the center, first and foremost, is as an economic development tool to accommodate large out-of-town groups. Secondary was the need to provide local businesses and organizations with meeting space.

A NEW LIFE IN LAKELAND

The road to building the Lakeland Center was a long one, starting in the early 1970s.

Bonds were issued to fund the original project. The county's resort tax was increased from 3 percent to 4 percent with $440,000 dedicated from the Tourist Development Tax and another $900,000 from the city's general fund.

To fund the recent renovation, the city issued new bonds to fund the $20 million construction costs.

"We did the renovation without a tax increase to the city. They (the city) just continued the same funding on the bonds they had for 20 years,'' Johnson said.

However, those bonds only covered 70 percent of the project. Other funds were raised from the Tourist Development Council and the Polk County Commission.

After the renovation was complete, Johnson said the center realized a 30 percent increase in business.

The revamped Lakeland Center is expected to draw 715,000 people through the doors to attend 815 events already on the 1999 schedule.

The complex books events like World Championship Wrestling and Florida State Girls

Allen Johnson, director of the Lakeland Center, said the center has gone through many changes over the years since it first opened in 1974.

and Boys Basketball championships in the arena. The theater has attracted the traveling portion of a Broadway series for the last three years, and the conference area accommodates events such as the state convention for the United Methodist Church.

With operating expenditures of $5.1 million and revenues of $3.5 million, the facility still loses about $1 million each year, plus the debt service cost of the renovation, which is made up from the general fund.

He said the facility will conduct another study in the summer of 1999 for further expansion to the center.

WHAT WORKS IN MANATEE

Although the Manatee Civic and Convention Center arena enjoys a 95 percent occupancy rate either in full use or half use, the conference wing is not as successful. The conference wing's occupancy rate is about 30 percent, up from 10 percent six years ago.

Meeting planners, said Falcione, are looking for a "one-stop shopping" location in terms of accommodations and facilities.

"We just can't attract the traffic from the Orlando or Tallahassee markets,'' he said. The center is also hampered by lack of an adjacent conference "headquarters" hotel.

"I don't want to leave that as an excuse,'' Falcione said. "But it's tough to keep occupancy up without a hotel.''

However, working in the center's favor is the lack of a convention center in Sarasota, which allows the Manatee Center to draw events from that area.

While the convention wing struggles, the arena has stayed busy during the complex's 15-year life. The arena hosts basketball games, antique shows, high school graduations along with a variety of other events. The arena area seats 3,200 in fixed-seating with capacity going to 4,000 for concert seating. In the 16,400 square-foot convention area, meeting space can be expanded to accommodate 500 or as few as five people.

The Manatee Civic and Convention Center has attendance of an estimated 350,000 people each year generating occupancy in about 7,500 area hotel rooms.

The civic and convention center is run by the Manatee County Commission Authority. Run on a much smaller scale than the Lakeland facility, the center is sometimes able to meet its budget, while there are other years that end in a shortfall. In the first three quarters of 1998 its operating expenses were just more than $1 million, while its revenues were $773,544.

Richard Taylor, director of the Hattiesburg Lake Terrace Convention Center, left, and Patrick Bell, marketing manager, stand in the executive conference room at the convention center, complete with leather chairs and a mahogany table.

A NEW GAMBLE

Discussions about a convention center in Hattiesburg began in late 1990.

Then in 1991, the Convention Center Commission was created and imposed a 2 percent tax on city restaurant and liquor sales to fund construction of the civic center. Any business with gross profits under $100,000 was exempted from the restaurant and liquor sales tax.

In 1996, 73 percent of voters approved a $6.5 million bond issue and construction began before the end of that year. Hattiesburg also has a 2 percent Tourism Development Commission tax, which helps fund the convention center.

Taylor said although the project drew opposition, the vote to pass the special sales tax showed the public's interest in building the facility.

He said the goal is for the Hattiesburg center to be self-sufficient in seven years and debt-free in 15 years.

"Rarely do these things break even, however it is a goal for them to break even or just above'' he said. "They are for economic development impact.''

And just six months in operation, the Hattiesburg Lake Terrace Convention Center had attendance of 116,536 people for 383 events, thus generating 3,265 area hotel rooms.

In 1992 and in 1995, the convention center commission conducted a survey to gauge the demand for a facility and how much business it would generate in the surrounding economy.

The report showed that while day visitors to the center would spend about $52 per person in the local economy, a tourist staying overnight would spend about $130 for lodging, food and gas.

Seating in the exhibition hall in the Hattiesburg facility can accommodate 1,600 in a theater configuration and 800 in a banquet setting. The room can be divided in halves or quarters. The Hattiesburg Area Development Partnership and the Hattiesburg Convention and Visitors Bureau are both housed in the convention center.

Other amenities include a hospitality suite overlooking the exhibition hall, an executive board room and a full-service catering kitchen.

© Copyright 1999 Star-Banner

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