Convention center has plan for expansion
New wing would be along existing building
By Jeanette Steele
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
The San Diego Convention Center is taking the first step toward a major expansion that would enable it to keep big-ticket conventions such as Comic-Con.
Today, convention center officials will announce the plans and answer the first question: Where? The answer: Alongside the existing building, closer to the bay.
The officials say buying a one-year option on 16 acres of Port of San Diego land gives them time to figure out another major question: How will they pay for an expansion?
The convention center's board plans to increase the facility's size by up to 300,000 square feet of exhibit space by 2014.
Ultimately, the board would like to double the current 525,000 square feet, but it's uncertain if there's enough room on the land that they would use.
Officials said yesterday that a new wing would likely allow them to keep Comic-Con International, the homegrown annual convention that draws about 125,000 people to downtown and has become a national pop-culture juggernaut.
They say it will save more than a dozen other less glitzy but lucrative conventions, including the BIO International Convention and the American Institute of Architects.
“This is just good business. So we are overjoyed to be able to expand our contribution to the community,” said Cheryl Kendrick, chairwoman of the nonprofit corporate board that runs the convention center for the city.
The behemoth on the bay now delivers $31.9 million a year to San Diego's civic coffers via hotel and sales taxes, and it estimates its annual economic impact at $1.8 billion.
Convention center officials have long said they are operating at full capacity. Shortly after the first expansion in 2001, they started talking about the need for more room.
Other cities – Phoenix and Anaheim, for example – are increasing their convention space in a leapfrogging phenomenon that has gone on for decades. San Diego, now home to the 10th-largest meeting center, needs to keep pace, officials said.
“We're protecting the third-largest industry that we have,” said Carol Wallace, convention center chief executive.
On Friday, the board is scheduled to vote to obtain a one-year option on port land next to the convention center. The price would be $1 million, plus an additional $13.5 million after a year if the board decides to move forward.
Two developers had long planned to build a 250-room boutique hotel called The Spinnaker on part of the property and hold a lease through 2024. Instead, the convention center and a hotel of undetermined size would take over.
Convention officials will take a year to work out the details: how to finance an expansion, what it will look like and how it will fit. Funding would probably come from borrowing against convention center revenues, Wallace said, but they are far from a complete proposal.
“We have purchased a year to figure this out,” Kendrick said.
Adding another wrinkle, another major convention space is brewing in Chula Vista, just south along the bayfront. Gaylord Entertainment has proposed a resort hotel of 1,500 to 2,000 rooms with 400,000 square feet of meeting space. The Chula Vista project, on the table since 2005, isn't expected to receive permits until the end of next year.
San Diego convention officials said they don't view Gaylord's proposal as competition because of its smaller size.
Another potential player departed last month. Marriott was seeking permits for a 1,900-room hotel with 215,000 square feet of convention space next to Petco Park. But Marriott dropped the plan, citing the tight credit market.
Convention officials say the downtown facility with its trademark white sail roof has performed well for the city, but will become obsolete if it doesn't expand.
Capacity has run above 60 percent, viewed as full capacity, since 2003. Last year, the center attracted 996,226 visitors who paid for more than 729,696 nights in hotel rooms.
The port paid cash for the initial convention center, completed in 1989 as part of a downtown revitalization program.
The 2001 expansion was financed by bonds that are being paid off by the city and the port. The port's share is $4.5 million; the city's is $9.2 million. The city also gives the convention center an annual stipend of $4.3 million to keep up the building.
Mayor Jerry Sanders is supportive of the growth plan, his press secretary said yesterday.
“The convention center is one of the best investments the taxpayers of San Diego have ever made,” said spokesman Darren Pudgil.