Given this would be such a large investment ($200 million+) we should seriously evaluate how big a benefit this would actually be. It's claimed:
"the facility lost 139 events that would have totaled $2.99 million in direct revenue in 2023, the consultant found. Of those lost bookings, a majority were due to a lack of available dates while space and size was second-most impactful on lost business — 13 percent of revenue lost is due to it being too small, according to the report."
A new events center would not solve the problem of lack of available dates (the old convention center is planned to be used for indoor recreation) so the vast majority of that money would not have been gotten with the proposed events center. I think they need to make a much stronger case to justify this investment. The city has big needs like affordable housing that get nowhere near this amount of investment.
Given this would be such a large investment ($200 million+) we should seriously evaluate how big a benefit this would actually be. It's claimed:
"the facility lost 139 events that would have totaled $2.99 million in direct revenue in 2023, the consultant found. Of those lost bookings, a majority were due to a lack of available dates while space and size was second-most impactful on lost business — 13 percent of revenue lost is due to it being too small, according to the report."
A new events center would not solve the problem of lack of available dates (the old convention center is planned to be used for indoor recreation) so the vast majority of that money would not have been gotten with the proposed events center. I think they need to make a much stronger case to justify this investment. The city has big needs like affordable housing that get nowhere near this amount of investment.