Careport Centre | ? | ? | Complete
 

Trade shows get new, bigger venue
City welcomes hall

September 12, 2009
John Kernaghan
The Hamilton Spectator
http://www.thespec.com/News/Local/article/633371

One of Copps Coliseum's major trade shows is moving to a private exhibition facility, thanks in part to another wing of city government.

But the move of the annual winter RV and Family Camping Show to the Careport Centre on Longwood Road South is seen as a winning proposition for the city.

The new 170,000-square-foot exhibition space in McMaster's Innovation Park means a show that outgrew Copps can still be staged locally, says Duncan Gillespie, CEO of Hamilton Entertainment and Convention Facilities Inc. (HECFI).

"The RV show simply outgrew Copps," he said. "Our mandate is to help businesses grow and we did that. Having a much bigger facility here means that business won't go someplace else. Now more people will come and spend money in Hamilton."

He pointed out the Food and Drink show has outgrown the Convention Centre space and will move to Copps, another example of the city fostering a show's development.

The RV show is one of several events Continuum Productions Inc. plans to run at Careport Centre, a huge converted section of a warehouse on Longwood.

Continuum president Dwayne McKillop approached the city's economic development department for advice in setting up the exhibit space.

"We certainly didn't want to undercut Duncan Gillespie," said Neil Everson, Hamilton's head of economic development.

But he said the department is there to help businesses get started and the Careport facility gives the city the largest exhibition space between the International Centre near Pearson International Airport and Niagara Falls.

"That 170,000 square feet is a big chunk of space on one level and makes Hamilton very competitive in attracting events."

Continuum's McKillop said he expects one other event that has used city exhibition space to move to Careport, but stressed it would be like the RV show -- either moving there or to another city as it grew.

He said the conversion of warehouse space to exhibit hall is about 40 per cent complete and will be ready for the RV show in February.

McKillop, who grew up in Waterdown and attended St. Mary's High School, has worked for two decades in event production and at one point ran the Toronto Boat Show.

He said Careport's location just off Highway 403 combined with plenty of parking makes it a desirable show centre.

Continuum is also staging the Ideal Home and Garden Show in March. McKillop calls it the largest show of its kind in southwestern Ontario.

He teamed with businessman Demetrius Tsafaridis on the Careport project. The show centre is part of Tsafaridis's CareGo Group of Companies.

Another nail in the coffin for attracting conventions, and their spinoffs, i.e. hotels, to downtown Hamilton.

Pushing plenty of parking (free I'm sure), which makes it desirable and makes downtown undesirable because of paid parking.

I see this more as the City and HECFI falling behind time. If they can't finance to renovate and/or expand the Convention Centre someone else will take their business, such as LIUNA, Lincoln Alexander Conference Centre, Carmen's, etc. At least this show centre will be in Hamilton.

I've advocated in the past that the City sell off the Convention Centre if they can't afford to update the venue.

I remember back in the early 70's listening to an uncle of mine who worked for the city and was involved in the planning of the convention center. He said at the time that what they were building was too small. He described it at the time as an oversized banquet hall. I guess his description was right on.

He had advised them to build something in the 200,000 sq ft range. You have to remember that at the time Copp's wasn't even in the planning stages so the size he advocated wasn't out of line. The council of the time not having any vision thought the idea was ridiculous. They wondered what all that space was needed for. Now we know. Unfortunately, because of the location and being hemmed in on all sides the present convention center is virtually useless. It cannot be expanded to adequetely meet the current needs.

As a result, the city is now going to lose business to a private facility. This is just typical of the city of Hamilton, always building for today without provision for future need.

Wow something positive and you guys find a way to make it negative. THis might not be downtown Hamilton but atleast its not in Burlington.

Is two centres one too many?
Careport denies hurting city

Mark McNeil
The Hamilton Spectator
http://www.thespec.com/News/Local/article/745408

A new trade show facility at McMaster's Innovation Park is starting to divert business from the city-owned Hamilton Convention Centre and raising questions about whether RV and Sexapalooza shows are appropriate for lands intended for scientific research.

Careport Centre -- on Longwood Road South in the 170,000-square-foot former Camco warehouse -- is expecting to do three times the number of shows this year than it had foreseen.

"It's ramping up a lot quicker than we thought it would," said Dwayne McKillop, president of Continuum Production Inc., the company that manages Careport.

"Originally we thought we would have six or seven events in the first year but now it looks like we will have 20 to 25."

Hamilton Councillor Bob Bratina is less than enthusiastic about the early success.

He says there are "concerns related to our aging facility (the convention centre) and our ability to attract larger events than we can comfortably accommodate."

The warehouse being used for the trade shows is owned by the Innovation Park and is being rented out on a temporary basis. But Bratina argues the distraction from the park's mandate of commercializing medical and scientific research is symptomatic of a larger problem.

"The Innovation Park is not living up to its promise, nor is it reflective of council's reasons for advancing $5 million to the project. Look up the mission statement and weigh that against what is going on. Basically they've built a facility and they're looking for tenants ... and forget about the 'vision.'"

Last weekend the giant Car Wars Auto Show & Sale was held at Careport.

McKillop says the car show is a classic example of an event that would not reasonably fit into the convention centre. He believes the giant Careport building is fulfilling a need because it can offer more than four times the square footage of the convention centre.

But two weeks ago, the 28,000-square-foot Sexapalooza show took place at Careport, moving away from the convention centre which it had used the previous two years.

Interestingly, Liz Lewis, the producer of Sexapalooza, now says she regrets the decision to change venues. She plans to go back to the convention centre next year.

In heavy rains on the March 13 weekend, the roof leaked, she said. "And it was very cold. On Sunday there was no heat. It was rough on the body painters and the girls in lingerie. Any of my vendors selling lingerie, their sales were terrible."

Lewis says the base rent for her event at Careport was much cheaper but "the convention centre includes so many services in its base rate that they actually are less expensive."

Duncan Gillespie, CEO of Hamilton Entertainment and Convention Facilities Inc. (HECFI), says he does not believe Careport will have a significant impact on convention centre events.

But he acknowledged that bookings at the convention centre are "slightly behind where we were last year at the same time" and the "latter half of 2010 is a little soft."

Gillespie says he "does not foresee a huge impact on us at HECFI ... (because) Careport is a different venue. It is not as upscale. It looks different and feels different."

For his part, McKillop says, "I know from an outsider's point of view it looks like we are competing but it's really apples and oranges.

"We're not out to eat anybody's lunch. Every single event we have throws a huge amount of money back into the local economy."

Careport does not have kitchen facilities and other amenities. It offers basic accommodation in a huge warehouse with a high ceiling that can be divided into smaller spaces to suit different clients. But one major benefit it has over the convention centre is free parking.

Another show that moved over this year to Careport from HECFI facilities was the annual RV and Family Camping Show.

All acknowledge the RV show needed more space than city-owned facilities could provide. But there was controversy with the Ideal Home and Garden Show that took place at Careport March 5 to 7.

In that case the issue wasn't plucking an event from HECFI but creating a new home show to compete against the 28th annual Living Home and Garden Show at the convention centre.

The two events were only a week apart, and the Hamilton-Halton Home Builders' Association complained bitterly about the upstart competition.

"After nearly three decades working on home shows in our marketplace, the HHHBA knows that Hamilton simply cannot support two large-scale events of this nature and especially only a week apart," HHHBA President Steve Spicer wrote to association members last fall after the new home show was announced.

He said he was also concerned about confusion in the marketplace.

As it turned out, attendance was strong at the convention centre home show and organizers of that event say they had a very good year.

Yet event organizer Paul McNair says he still does not believe two home shows in Hamilton are sustainable over the long run.

And there may be another clash brewing between exhibition hall proponents and the needs of McMaster Innovation Park.

McKillop says: "There are some future plans for this facility that I am not at liberty to disclose. But at the end of the day, the Innovation Park will do what it is going to do and Hamilton is going to end up with a really nice new expo hall full of the big type of events that could help to support other facilities like Copps Coliseum and the convention centre."

McMaster Innovation Park president Zach Douglas says he is looking at taking back some of the former warehouse space at some point in the next several months.

"Right now we are quite happy to have a tenant in that building and generating some revenue to help us with other development at the park ... but warehousing or running shows is not part of our long-term vision for the park."

Carport Centre
 

National Smarter-Car Research Network Established at McMaster University

HAMILTON, ON (October 15, 2010) – The Network on Engineering Complex Software Intensive Systems for Automotive Systems (NECSIS) was announced today by Tony Clement, Minister of Industry, at McMaster Innovation Park. NECSIS is a $16.6-million national research network created to tackle the technological challenges related to the growing complexity of automotive software systems.

“Taking a leadership role in this new software engineering network expands McMaster’s contributions to yet another growing area of automotive research, adding to our expertise in hybrid powertrains, material lightweighting, and advanced manufacturing,” said Patrick Deane, president and vice-chancellor, McMaster University.

Under this new university-industry R&D collaboration, General Motors of Canada Ltd and IBM Canada are mobilizing leading software engineers at seven Canadian universities and a Montreal research centre. NECSIS also includes the participation of Malina Software Corp, an Ottawa-based consultancy focused on advanced software engineering methods.

“As a leading supporter of collaborative research in Canada, we have helped build a strong automotive innovation network,” said Kevin Williams, president and managing director of GM of Canada. “NECSIS is a key initiative as we re-think the automobile and deploy innovative approaches to develop tomorrow’s technologies.”

“In an era where billions of devices are being interconnected to enable intelligent decisions, the time is right to create and to innovate development processes using real-time navigational capabilities that will help build a smarter car,” said Bruce Ross, president, IBM Canada. “Together with our partners, IBM is proud to leverage our Canadian research capabilities to invest and to collaborate in this innovation effort as we collectively advance intelligent transportation in Canada.”

NECSIS is led by principal investigator Tom Maibaum, Canada Research Chair in the Foundations of Software Engineering at McMaster University, along with co-principal investigator Joanne Atlee, associate professor at the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. Other universities in the network include McGill University, Queen’s University, University of British Columbia, University of Toronto, and University of Victoria, as well as Centre de Recherche Informatique de Montréal.

“Computer systems in vehicles are managing more and more operations and increasing in complexity,’ said Maibaum. “That adds up to tens of millions of lines of software code that must work flawlessly and seamlessly together, and achieving this is becoming increasingly challenging using current approaches to software development.”

Backed by a five-year $10.5 million grant from Automotive Partnership Canada, of which the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) is the lead agency, research by NECSIS will focus on the advancement of an emerging methodology called model driven engineering (MDE). MDE reduces the complexity of developing software by focusing on models and their relationships, reflected in the designs, code and documents that developers work with, enabling them to test and verify models even before the code exists.

“Canada has long led the world in the highly advanced field of model driven engineering,” added Bran Selic, President and Founder of Malina Software Corp. “With decades-long expertise in this field, we are extremely pleased and proud to have the opportunity to contribute to this important initiative.”

Functions managed by computer systems in today’s vehicles include braking, stability, safety and fuel systems; systems to reduce emissions; and systems to protect, entertain and communicate with the driver. Hybrid and all-electric vehicles involve even more complex software based systems.

The network will be based in the new McMaster Automotive Resource Centre (MARC) being developed at McMaster Innovation Park. It is the same facility that will house research initiatives related to new hybrid powertrain and lightweight materials. MARC is being developed as an innovation ecosystem, promoting daily interactions among industry, university and government on market-oriented and industry-driven research.

This money is for research only. It is not for a building. They do not have one cent yet to build or renovate a building for this research. They have requested money from both the province and federal government and have heard nothing. They are looking for $11 mil to cut the Steelcare building into 3 parts, one of them for the new McMaster Automotive Resource Centre.

They even had to find money for Canmet. They have a $42 Mil mortgage out on the Canmet building. All the feds are doing is guaranteeing the monthly rent for 25 years after the forced move. McMaster put up some money to secure the mortgage but want all their money back now.