Salt Lake MSA Development Thread

[RFPCME]

Originally Posted by stevena07

Yet another reason to build a new convention hotel. I wish the city would realize the potential of the empty sites around the city and place the hotel in one of them, especially the sites by the Salt Palace

Stevena07: I hate to rain on anyone's parade, but conventions that fill up all the hotels for 3 or 4 or even 5 or 6 weekends a year are not going to pay for a 1,000 room hotel. I don't know what current occupancy rates are for local hotels, but I will bet they are down, like almost everywhere else in the country. In addition, the mega-conventions that SLC is attracting are those that have some logical link to the City, like the Outdoor Retailers Convention. I'm not sure what the link would be to other major meetings, like APA (American Psychological Association), NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English), ABA (American Bar Association), et cetera. Of course, one could argue Utah is a great place for these meetings because of the tremendous local need for the services offered by members of these groups (so said, with tongue firmly in cheek).