Face Lift for the Convention Center
Author: Diana Heeb Bivona
The Las Vegas Convention Center will receive a face lift over the next few years. A $890 million rennovation that will also include an expansion of its current facilities. Plans include a substantial overhaul and an increase to 3.8 million sf from 3.2 million sf. Work will begin in earnest in 2008 with the lion’s share being completed in 2010.
Improvements include a naturally lit lobby, a completely renovated exterior and a more modern interior design. The additions include a 37% increase in meeting space, a 78% increase in restaurant space and 67% more food-service space. The convention center also will gain a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Substation and a Clark County Fire Station, a first for such a facility.
May 15th, 2007 at 10:18 am
The proposed expenditure to renovate the Las Vegas Convention Center is a ridiculous waste of the money that was raised by Las Vegas resorts. This will be another expensive fiasco and big time loser like the monorail and the Freemont Experience.
According to figures being used to promote this boondoggle, if Las Vegas lost a few of the biggest conventions in the world then the hotel rooms would be empty and the casinos would be bare during the days that those conventions are elsewhere. Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.
Would Las Vegas lose all that much convention business just because the Las Vegas Convention Center lost out on some really big conventions? How many days out of the year does Las Vegas host shows at the Las Vegas Convention Center that have 100,000 or more people? Spending $890 million dollars just to facilitate 40 or 50 days a year when the biggest of the big conventions are in town doesn’t even make sense.
The “What stays…” slogan and ad campaign was one of the most successful advertising campaigns of all time. Why isn’t the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority spending the proposed $890 million on something else like that?
The analysts and experts say this money has to be spent on the Las Vegas Convention Center or the sky will fall and Las Vegas will become a ghost town. The wonderful thing about the biggest hotels in the world, which just happen to be in Las Vegas, and just happen to have casinos, is they don’t have to make $1 off of their rooms and restaurants in order to make a fortune. So, if the average convention visitor spends $1600 on non-gaming, and Joe and Jane Tourist who come here to gamble and have fun only spend $750, who’s to say the casinos don’t come out ahead with the gamblers instead of business people who are too busy working to play in the casino? Wouldn’t it be terrible if hotels had to lower their rates to fill up there rooms so they could make their fortunes off of casinos like they used to in the good old days. (Remember back when Las Vegas was still the number one gambling place in the world?)
The gaming business is the still the most profitable business in Nevada. Let the resorts with casinos take care of getting their own convention business and filling up their rooms, instead of adding to the existing non-functional facility that is poorly located on a lot that has no decent access to freeways.