Trade center is showing its age

Tired.

That’s a a word that Dalton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director Brett Huske says he hears fairly often when showing potential clients around the Northwest Georgia Trade and Convention Center.

“That’s a nice way in the meeting industry to say a facility needs some work,” Huske said. “It’s a general statement. When you look at the freshness of the building, it’s the wear on the carpets, its the colors that are used. Colors change by time periods and can have a dated look. It’s just obvious when you walk into a facility and it’s outdated.”

The trade center was built 21 years ago, and officials say it hasn’t had a comprehensive overhaul since it was completed.

Huske hastens to add that the trade center is a “great asset” for the area and does attract a great deal of business.

Total attendance at events hosted by the facility was 158,700 in 2011, up from 103,637 in 2009 and 114,968 in 2010, according to data provided by trade center officials.

“The amount of space we have there, relative to the number of hotel rooms we have and the size of our community, is a far greater ratio than a lot of communities. Having said that, it is my belief that the facility is tired and needs a substantial renovation,” he said.

He notes that the trade center is now competing with several newer or recently remodeled convention centers and civic centers in Cartersville, Macon and Ringgold.

“But more important than what Brett Huske says, we lost the governor’s conference on tourism this year because, and this is what the organizers said: ‘We don’t have an attached hotel and the facility is tired,’” Huske said.

That event would have brought in about 500 people for two nights. And it is just one of several events that have turned down Dalton because the trade center does not have an attached hotel, looks dated or both, Huske said.

“We lost the Georgia Rural Letter Carriers. That was 400 people. The Ramp, 5,000 people that we had this year. They said they would probably not come back without an adjacent hotel. We only got them this year because they were bumped out of Chattanooga,” he said.

The trade center was designed so that a hotel could be built that would be attached to it, but that has never happened. Local officials came close in 2008, accepting a proposal from developer John Q. Hammons to build a 220- to 240-bed Embassy Suites hotel at the trade center. That deal would have called on trade center officials to refurbish the facility to bring its look up to date and make it match the hotel. But after then-Gov. Sonny Perdue vetoed a bill that would create tax credits for tourism-related projects such as that hotel, Hammons dropped out of the deal.

“We are still talking to investors, investigating our options,” said trade center authority board Chairman Dan Rogers. “We want to get a hotel here at the trade center. We know how important that is. We are optimistic.”

To a large extent, however, when and if a hotel is built at the trade center is in the hands of developers and investors, not local officials. But local officials do have more control over the trade center itself, and over the past 21 years they’ve done little to keep it fresh.

“For the most part, the building has not received major renovations,” said trade center General Manager Shashank Gairola. “It has been piecemeal here and there. Capital projects have been approved on the need at the time.”

The trade center is owned by the city of Dalton and Whitfield County. The Dalton City Council and the Whitfield County Board of Commissioners must equally fund the trade center’s operating deficit, which is expected to be about $950,000 this year. They must equally fund any capital improvements, which are typically not included in those operating funds.

“It’s fair to say that the facility has not received the cash necessary to make complete capital improvements,” Rogers said. “The reality is that budgets are tight. They were tight five years ago, and they are even tighter today.”

Run by Global Spectrum

The trade center has been managed for the past three years by Global Spectrum, a Philadelphia-based firm that manages about 75 convention centers, arenas and stadiums around the country. Before Global Spectrum was hired to manage the trade center it performed an audit that found a number of issues with the facility, including a need for extensive capital improvements.

A major topic for Global Spectrum was the need for a kitchen renovation. The company noted the trade center kitchen was never intended to be a full production space, but rather a finish kitchen for the proposed hotel kitchen. Global Spectrum suggested adding and replacing kitchen equipment, a refrigerated/freezer storage area and buying new serviceware. The expected cost of those upgrades in 2008 was $179,800.

Global Spectrum suggested new carpet, paint, furnishings, plants, graphics and artwork. Global Spectrum wrote that replacing wall coverings, reupholstering seating and repairing carpet had been “a lower priority” for the trade center. Those items, however, affect the “quality of the product being sold” and also impact the bottom line, it said in its report. It did not provide any cost estimates for that work.

The trade center has since made few of those changes.

That isn’t to say that the trade center has made no capital improvements. Just since 2009 it has replaced a chiller tower ($75,000), repaired the roof above the ballroom ($72,000), acquired some new smallware and decor items at auction ($16,000) and upgraded its security system ($9,000). Most of the capital dollars the trade center has spent have been to repair or replace aging equipment.

“Discretionary upgrades have been rare,” Rogers said.

The city and county paid off the last of the trade center’s bonds in the summer of 2011. The payments on those bonds had been about $500,000 a year each. In the past, trade center board members had hoped when those bonds were paid off some of that money would be used to take care of the backlog of capital improvements.

“There was the hope that some of that money would have flowed to capital projects, and I think that some of it would have had the economy not been in such dire straits,” Rogers said.

The project at the top of the list for trade center officials is an expansion and renovation of the kitchen. Gairola said that having a full-service kitchen would make it easier for the building to attract business.

But with the local economy mired in a slump for the past three years, local officials say they see no signs of providing extra money to the trade center.

Last year, the Board of Commissioners, facing a $7.1 million gap between revenue and spending in 2012, initially proposed only providing about $200,000 to the trade center this year, funding it solely from its hotel/motel tax. After being advised by their attorney that the law that created the trade center required them to fund half its operating deficit they agreed to provide another $275,000 from their general fund.

“I would agree that, maybe not the maintenance, but the capital improvements have been neglected over the past 21 years,” said Robby Staten, a member of the Board of Commissioners and the trade center board. “But I don’t know what the answer is, especially given the county’s own financial situation. I don’t know what the trade center’s future is.”

Staten said that bringing a hotel to the trade center or hosting basketball or other athletic programs by Dalton State College could help improve the facility’s finances.

Dalton City Council member Gary Crews, who is also a trade center board member, said he agrees that the building needs some sprucing up. But he said local governments would likely have to explain to the public why they would spend more money on the building.

“We haven’t done a good job of explaining to the public the benefits the trade center generates. It is revenue generator for this community, bringing in people who eat in our restaurants and stay in our hotels. Once we can explain that, it will build more community support,” Crews said.

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