KPBS.org reports that the task force assigned to determine the future of a planned expansion of the San Diego Convention Center, has approved the expansion. They decided that the $750 million project was feasible and would have a positive impact on the region. How to pay for the project?
The task force presents several options for paying for the expansion including an increase in city or county sales taxes, an increase in the taxes charged for hotel rooms and creating a special taxing district around the convention center. Critics of the project call it too expensive and say expansions rarely live up to expectations. The task force will meet on Monday to issue its official recommendation.
You can read more of the task force’s decision here. Kevin Melrose rounds up other germane links here.
The expansion is, of course, VITAL to the future of the San Diego Comic-Con, as other cities were vying for its business, and the show had maxed out on space, leaving revenues and attendance flat despite the ever-increasing demand for its marketing platform. While the bigger con center is good news, the idea of an even BIGGER San Diego is daunting, to say the least, and just thinking about it, we’ve run out to purchase a flare gun, orthopedic shoes, a backpack full of MREs and some Depends.
Developing.
UPDATE: We’ve begun going through the 78 page draft report and it’s the Dead Sea Scrolls for all convention center Kremlinology, with charts, graphs, and a strong repudiation of the idea that Comic-Con doesn’t sell out every hotel room within a few hours travel. (An anti-expansion consultant mentions this canard.) The entire report online mentions Comic-Con once, in that regard, painting the expansion as something that would benefit the community in adding opportunities for other shows across the board, not just the nerds. Probably a good idea as far as selling it to the locals goes.
But the problem remains…PAYING FOR IT. It’s up to the mayor to figure that one out, and SD taxpayers aren’t likely to be eager to foot the bill.
…mixed feelings.
Hopefully the expansion will come an indoor monorail or shuttle system to get from one end to the other. Nothing worse than showing up for that panel discussion all tuckered out and sweating. Of course, if I planned my events better I wouldn’t have to rush.
Still, sounds good San Diego.
Also, let me know when they get to the underwater exhibit area.
Doubling the hotel capacity would be a nice next step.
That’s it, I’m getting wheels implanted in my feet for next year’s show.
If the convention becomes larger, won’t most of the increase come from more studios and other non-comics companies?
SRS
Shame it’s becoming less and less about comics… :/
Also, wasn’t there talk/rumor of raising the 4-day pass from $75 to $100…?
That’s a little bit extra right there.
People can stack like sardines in a hotel room, but each person still need a pass just to get in. Get the money where it’s spent — not split. Of course, the best way is to get the money from EVERY avenue possible.
Guess I’d better get in line for the Twilight panel this weekend …
Jimmie- The price for a 4.5 membership is $100.
Todd- Given the collapse of Downtown real estate, building more hotels is easier to imagine (since no one is going to be building anymore CONdos).
This article says that about 500 vendors couldn’t be fitted into the 2009 SDCC:
I wonder who the vendors were?
SRS
Big Head Press was one of them.
Synsidar: WHAT empty hotel rooms?
I have no problem with raising the price to $100…for what you get — four and a half days of fun and frolic — it’s very cheap.
Essentially, if you exhibited consistently through 2004-2006, you get in for 2007, 2008 etc. going forward. We exhibited in 2005 only, decided to wait a couple of years to build up a catalog before exhibiting again. Then when we applied in 2007 were told sorry, all full up.
We keep sending in applications every year, hoping to move up the list. At the rate things are going, we might get in for the 2015 show.
The chart here puts San Diego’s hotel capacity at 54,395 rooms. Are all of them, regardless of price, filled? I’ll look into that tonight.
Mr. Bieser, I didn’t know there was that sort of backlog of requests for vendor space.
SRS
“Recommendation: Based on seven months of testimony and
presentations it is the view of the Taskforce that we recommend to
the Mayor that, based on the findings herein, he: more specifically
define the scope and cost of the proposed Convention Center
expansion project; work with the primary stakeholders to identify the
revenue and financing necessary to bring it to fruition; then move
forward on the expansion of the Convention Center.”
“In his presentation to the Task Force, Heywood Sanders said: “What is intriguing about these to me is after the expansion, how the primary attendance number rises very rapidly, but the hotel room night number does not show much of an increase from the peak years in the 1990s. This has for me, for a very long time presented an intriguing kind of analytical conundrum. Part of the reason, obviously, and this is taken from the PricewaterhouseCoopers report is that several large events, notably Comic-Con, the two ASR trade expos and the Rock N’ Roll marathon, generate large attendance volumes without necessarily generating very many hotel room nights.”
However, several of the Task Force members raised concerns and objections to Mr. Sanders claims.”
Remember the $8 hot dog? The Task Force recommends placing retail along the waterfront, as well as adding a pedestrian bridge (which may solve the train problem).
Page 46 of the report (found at: http://www.conventioncentertaskforce.org/resources/meetingdocs/San%20Diego%20Mayor%27s%20Citizen%20Task%20Force%20Final%20Report%20DRAFT%20v7.pdf ) shows the possibilities of expansion! Option Five, contiguous to the center, along the port site (east of Hall H), is the recommended suggestion, although the Hilton poses a small problem.
Personally, I wonder why convention centers aren’t vertical. Elevators and escalators move people more efficiently, the floors can be separated for different events, and a city adds a landmark to the local skyline.
I just wish they’d put all the comics stuff together in the hall.
Going from the 1100-1200 area to artists alley took me over a half hour. (Partially my faukt for not taking the outside route)
I do hope the “out of the hall” event idea gains momentum.
The good thing is I don’t have to think about it as a con-goer, as I can’t imagine I’ll still be going by the time it’s built.
Oops… looks like they plan to build BEHIND Hall H, towards the Fifth Avenue Pier. The new exhibition halls would not be on the same level as the existing convention center (reserved for marina access, and existing loading docks).
Looking at Google Maps, why don’t they landfill the Fifth Avenue Pier, and then add some parkland to existing Marina Park? Then they could double the space of the most recent expansion (Halls D-H). Of course, then they would have too much space…
Detailed site options:
http://www.conventioncentertaskforce.org/resources/presentations/TF%20Present%20June%202%202009-TSA%20Presentation.pdf
The price for Comicon, even at $100.00 for 4.5 days is a bargain. The World SF convention is more than $200 at the door for 4 days (and buying tickets 2 years in advance starts at more than $100). The World Fantasy Convention (membership around one thousand people, tops, and is a small convention) is $150.00.
Walking past Petco Field every day this year, wishing the new pedestrian bridge had been built already, I kept thinking, “That could be your new Hall H, right there.”
Re: Paying for it
I think it would be fair to ask CCI for a little help there. I mean, it’s pretty obvious they’re building it for them anyway.
Tom: I thought that 20 years ago and here I still am.
Torsten: when are YOU going to get a job on a task force!
They’d really need to install those moving sidewalks you see in airports (aka “people movers”).
Torsten: Not sure how stable landfills are in quake-prone California.
Todd- a lot of the area around the Convention Center is landfill, done about 100 years ago, before we understood things like earthquakes and liquefaction. Soon as California figured that out, it stopped landfilling.
And although $100 is a big jump from $75 of the 2009 Con, I kind of wish it would go up. Scare the cheapskates away right off the bat instead of getting them when you add in parking, plane tickets, hotels, etc. Admission should be close to $150.
They could always raise funds by making pros pay too.
What % of the 125000 are people that get in for free?
(Said as someone who has never paid to attend the con)
I’ll pay something if I’m just there as a pro walking around enjoying the place.
But if I’m already paying for a table/booth, then there should be an exemption.
Statements re hotel room occupancy:
North County Times, Escondido:
SDNN.com
SDNN.com
TradingMarkets.com
Culinary Concepts’ blog:
What accounts for the 98 percent versus 80+ percent disparity in occupancy rates? Surely, it’s not as simple as splitting hotels and motels as types of lodging.
SRS
A big part of the cost to build more space will be a hotel tax. Whatever the hotel tax is now, it will soon be more. That way conventioneers will be paying for the increased size of the convention hall.
I’ll believe in the expansion of the Convention Center they break the grounds to actually do it.
Till then, I’m expecting YEARS of political manuevering, feasibility reports, and a public ballot iniative or two before ANY expansion plans are actualised. (Local SDers should remember how long it took PETCO PARK to be built, and that promise/threat of a new CHARGERS Stadium still bubbling along.)
I don’t know if the Convention expansion will be realised by 2015— past the CCI:SD’s contract with the Center that ends in 2012… or even in time for the new extension period past THAT.
The 80% figure appears to be for North County (it’s from the North County Times), as opposed to San Diego proper, which was the 98% figure.
Yes, I guess I was confused by the multiple references to “county” and Comic-Con attendees taking rooms in North County hotels and motels. Not being familiar with San Diego, I just think of the area as the San Diego metropolitan area.
SRS
it seems like a LOT of extra money. Not sure if it’s a good idea.
I mean, I also don’t understand why an expansion would be necessary considering the use of local hotels and whatnot can also provide extra room for additional panels and whatnot, while not costing the taxpayer any additional revenue.
If you look closely at the proposal which suggested an expansion into the fan area, you’ll see a fault line running along the western edge of the property.
Re: CCI:SD and expansion. What are the demographics of attendees? How many from the city, from the county, from the Los Angeles metropolitan area, from other states? Local attendees help sell the expansion as a local amenity (important as business travel budgets are reduced), travelers help sell the center as a tourism magnet (although when I visited SDCC, I never visited museums or parks).
Heidi, I am a task force… the Seduction of the Innocent. No members, I report to no one, and I am privately funded.