Charlotte's SkyScraper Boom

[monsoon]

Business spending on travel is way down and that is affecting the convention business. The Charlotte Convention Center loses $2.5M/year. If it wasn't a city enterprise, it would be out of business.

[Lady Celeste]

I'm sorry krazeeboi but in my post regarding your comment I specifically named a few cities who are having a successful convention industry. I was not speaking of the industry as a whole. Unfortunately New Orleans has been temporarily knocked out of the convention industry.

If you can log into the Bizjournals here is an article regarding Atlanta's convention industry.

Conventions stage a comeback.

I'm sorry of you were led to believe that I was talking about every city.

On another note, you said:

At any rate, I see no need for Charlotte to expand its convention center in order to "better compete" with the Georgia World Congress Center. That place is massive.

I would never suggest what another city that I am not wholey familar with should or should not do. I was not speaking specifically about Charlotte but rather about your comment on the convention industry. There are a few cities...ones which I listed....who are doing okay in spite of an overall slump in the industry. It was a serious tangent that I went on. I apologize. I also would like to add that when I said that some cities would beg to differ is not only the money brought to the convention centers themselves but the dollars pumped into the local industry. This whole dynamic is what I was referring to.

I read the article you provided from USAToday. Oddly enough both are written around the same time. I guess that's the beauty of the internet, you can prove any point, either way with reliable sources.

[krazeeboi]

I understand where you are coming from, but I believe that the cities that are bucking the trend have certain assets in place that Charlotte does not have--hence, no need for the city to expand its current convention center. I was speaking of the convention business in general, and not the few exceptions.

[atlrvr]

I'm going to go ahead and keep us off topic.

In Charlotte (and I would assume most cities), hotels offer the biggest tax boost to the city per dollar invested of any other type of real estate....office, industrial, retail, residential, etc.... To be honest, it's not even close. A $5M hotel generates about $90k NET revenue to the city, while retail and office typicall generate less than 1/2 that net.....and housing, well, a house typically doesn't even pay for itself if it's under $200k.

This is why many cities view conventions as such big draws...more conventions equals more hotels (and better occupancy at existing hotels).