City and tourism leaders fail to find ways to finance the $150-million needed to double the size of the Tampa Convention Center.
By MARK ALBRIGHT
Published August 27, 2004
TAMPA - Plans to double the size of the Tampa Convention Center have been dealt a lethal blow.
A committee of city officials and tourist industry leaders came up empty-handed in a six-month search for city or county revenue sources big enough to bankroll a new $150-million government debt issue to pay for the project.
The Hillsborough County Tourist Development Council, which paid for a $147,000 convention center expansion feasibility study last year, took no action Thursday after hearing the news in a project update.
Some council members asked convention center officials to check with more investment bankers. But so far no one has suggested that the council embark on the next stage of the feasibility study, which would be to settle on a revenue source and secure the funding.
"The project is not going to go forward without a revenue source," said Gene Gray, county economic development director. "And we don't have one."
Mayor Pam Iorio's current priorities of spending millions on a downtown arts district and riverfront improvements pushed the convention center down the list.
"We're continuing to look at how to do it, but it's not a top priority for this administration," said John Moors, the convention center director. "We don't want to rush this project. We'll probably be looking now at some sort of public/private partnership."
The fact that the city and county don't have enough unclaimed bonding capacity - without pledging the city's property taxes - leaves project proponents staring at a doubtful scenario: persuading city government officials to take on new debt that is guaranteed by property taxes, which is the same source of funds used to build the original convention center that opened in 1991.
The original bond issue, which still soaks up $13.4-million a year in taxpayer-financed debt payments, was refinanced to be less of a load on the city's property tax collections. But payments continue through 2015, so the issue probably cannot be refinanced again.
"The project is not dead yet," said Steve Hayes, executive vice president of the Tampa Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau. "But this means we are going to have to get creative."
The initial part of the feasibility study was to evaluate the market for an expanded convention center. But there were some very big ifs attached. For one thing, the market demand would not be generated without a new downtown convention hotel the size of the 714-room Marriott Waterside. That would be in addition to the new 371-room Embassy Suites now under construction next door to the current 279,000-square-foot center that is considered a moderate-size facility in the convention center industry.
Another was that expansion would have to either jut out over the Garrison Channel or somehow be built east of the current convention center to avoid the high cost of building over the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway. Environmental permits for building over the water would be very difficult, if not impossible, to get, according to the feasibility study.
In an unrelated development the tourist council learned that Hillsborough County's hotel business recovered faster than forecast in 2004. So agencies that get money from a resort on hotel bills will share in an $810,000 windfall in the coming fiscal year. The Tampa Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau will be the biggest beneficiary.
After resort tax collections slumped dramatically after the terrorist attacks in 2001, the county imposed a conservative zero growth budget on tourist tax spending. Instead, tax collections rebounded to 2001 levels. So the council increased its budget by $810,000 to $9.6-million for this year and $10-million in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.
