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Getting Serious? Broward County, Florida Claims to be Ready
for Convention Center Hotel, Again.

By Brittany Wallman, Sun SentinelMcClatchy-Tribune Regional News

April 17, 2013--Broward County is getting serious about building a convention center hotel. Again.

County commissioners, with support from the business community, say it's time to transform what's been described as a somewhat boring and inconvenient Broward County Convention Center into a dynamic site that would attract more business and help the local economy.

This time they want to think big -- with a hotel and maybe an entertainment district as well.

"It's not just a hotel we're talking about now, and an expansion of the convention center," Mayor Kristin Jacobs said Tuesday at a county workshop, "but much grander than that."

The county-owned convention center, at 1950 Eisenhower Boulevard off Southeast 17th Street, has some problems. It's situated near the water, but the views are of a parking garage, with cruise ships peeking over them. It lacks a hotel, turning off big convention bookers. And it's set behind a Port Everglades security checkpoint erected after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"I think you're losing ground," Tom Hazinski, a hospitality consultant with HVS, told commissioners Tuesday. "You're on a declining trend right now ... that is only likely to continue if you do nothing."

Comissioners said they'd move cautiously, attempting to avoid the landmines of the past. Adding a hotel to the site hasn't proved easy. It's been on the County Commission's to-do list for years and years.

"When you were in high school driving through the port, we were trying to build a convention center hotel," county tourism chief Nicki Grossman told County Commissioner Marty Kiar, who is 36. "I've never felt older in my life."

"Actually," Kiar responded, "I think I was in eighth grade when it first came up."

Broward County has attemped three times to get a hotel built at the convention center since it opened in 1989. Just four months ago, the county paid a $1.6 million "success fee" to the last hotel consultant, even though that attempt failed. The payment settled a breach of contract lawsuit against Broward County.

"Maybe the fourth time is the charm," Commissioner Stacy Ritter said.

At Tuesday's workshop, commissioners said they'll fix the security checkpoint problem, but not by building a "bypass" road that has been planned for at least six years. The expressway would have allowed conventiongoers -- and beachgoers -- to take a shortcut through Port Everglades from Federal Highway to Southeast 17th Street, along Spangler and Eisenhower boulevards, without being stopped by security checkpoints.

The bypass road, once estimated at $30 million, is now projected to cost anywhere from $67.5 million to $93 million, commissioners were told Tuesday.

A formal vote to abandon that project is expected soon. Commissioners said they prefer to relocate the security checkpoint so that it's a bit south of the convention center, resolving a key complaint about access at a cost of $13.5 million.

In the audience Tuesday were businessmen, businesswomen, and members of the Broward Workshop, a group of 100 top executives. Broward Workshop leaders told the Sun Sentinel recently that remaking the convention center is a top issue, and one that would help the greater economy.

"It's been an open sore and a wound that's been there," said Workshop Chairman Dr. Harry Moon, in a recent interview. "And for me, it's 'Time's up.' "

Grossman said the county's lost half a billion dollars -- $571.9 million -- in local economic impact over the past seven years because the convention center lacks a hotel.

Hoteliers and local businesspeople are watching closely, interested in the economic benefit of more visitors, but concerned about whether the commissioners will decide to give the proposed new hotel the advantage of a public subsidy.

Commissioners Tuesday differed on whether public support should be offered for a hotel.

The county's consultant said subsidizing a new "headquarters hotel" would be "mandatory" to enable the hotel developer to get financing for the project, whose cost is estimated at between $281 million and $307 million. County Administrator Bertha Henry agreed with that assessment.

"We believe it's going to require some inducement on the part of the government," she said Tuesday.

[email protected] or 954-356-4541

___

(c)2013 the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)

Visit the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) at www.sun-sentinel.com

Distributed by MCT Information Services



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