Should Colorado Springs build a new Expo Center? (Denver: sales, hotels)

[reginhild]

The Phil Long Expo Center seems awfully small for Colorado Springs in my opinion. Do you think a new modern and larger event center would be a valuable addition? Would it bring in more business to the city?

[Mike from back east]

Yes. Instead of another Phil Long Expo Center (PLEC) I prefer a real honest to goodness Convention Center (CC). I'm just not sure that CC's are good for any city. The ones I've seen are usually in downtown areas and surrounded by hotels, bars, eateries, etc, not always the most appealing or healthy of places to live.

FYI for all: Big city CC's, like the one in DC, cost $850M to build a state of the art world-class venue with over 2.3M sq ft of space. That's about 25 times the size of PLEC, which is 92k sq ft. I don't think COLO SPGS is ready for a convention center of that size. The Colorado CC in Denver only has 600K sq ft of space, one-fourth the size of DC. The Expo Hall at the National Western complex in Denver is 36k sq ft.

COLO SPGS was talking of having a CC in the downtown area. Perhaps in the old industrial area near the main power plant, but on the east side of I-25 and the railroad, yet west of downtown. That might work. I can't stand the thought of putting a huge CC near those gorgeous tree-lined streets bordering the east side of downtown, like Weber, Wahsatch, Cascade, Nevada, etc. That area is a gem of walkabout urban sanity.

My favorite site for a convention center is in the Interquest Pkwy area, exit 153 off I-25. Hundreds of flat acres, right off the highway, with no demo costs, just grade it and build it. Strong points to this location are marvelous highway access for I-25/Hwy83/Voyager Pkwy, no delays due to the time it takes to do urban demo and site remediation, no nearby housing to disrupt, two major hotels now being built, nearness to the Denver market & airport, etc. My second pick to put a convention center is that area of North Nevada just off of I-25 that is now being redeveloped - with big box stores.

Perhaps I'm overstating things by discussing convention centers in the same context as places like Phil Long Expo Center (PLEC). The PLEC type of venue can be had anyplace where a big box store goes belly up. We had this back in the DC area when the K-Mart Corp decided to close two of it's big box subsidiaries:
- Builder's Square, which competed with Lowe's and Home Depot.
- Pace Warehouse Club,which competed with Costco, BJ's, and Sam's Club.
We had both of these KMart big box stores adjacent to each other back in Chantilly, VA, and they have become one of the biggest show venues in the entire DC area. It was an extremely rare occurrence that 2 side-by-side big box stores closed at the same time, but the business community actually maximized the potential, not to mention direct access off a 6-lane highway. I lived 2 miles from there and went often to see shows like: antiques; boats; RV's; custom cars/cycles; model trains; dolls & collectibles; horse shows; home shows; etc. They also held "trade shows" that were closed to the public. With 200k sq ft of space, the Dulles Expo Center was able to attract large shows. By comparsion, PLEC is 92k sq ft.

I'm not sure we have the case here where a big box will walk out of town and leave us such an opportunity as they got back east, so we deal with the question of do we need a larger, more modern venue than the PLEC.

Yes.

PLEC is a small venue for a city of this size. Biggest issue is access; even though two blocks off I-25, the tiny twisty 2-lane street going in off Voyager Pkwy (Hwy83) is a joke. Access via Academy isn't much better as this is a highly congested area to start with. Parking is very limited too. PLEC does okay for small events, but IMO, I'd like to see PLEC turned into a food warehouse for Trader Joe's and someone build a much larger venue.

I'd like to see a new venue in COLO SPGS, something with decent on-site food, a few amenities and about 300K sq ft of space that can be sub-divided in order to have 2-3 concurrent events. It's bound to bring in more business for the city, as right now there seems to be no really nice venue's here for larger shows. Keeping it on the north side would help draw from the Denver area.

[reginhild]

I agree that 300,000-400,000 sq.ft. would be about right for Colorado Springs (3x-4x the size of Phil Long Expo Center).

I think we should go with something different and build a great hall and castle like hotel at the top of the scraped off mountain area to the left of the scar (visible NW of Garden of the Gods). Since we mined the area and created a big flat area it seems perfect for a beautiful castle that would be a Colorado Springs landmark. The location is also such that it would not block anyone's Pikes Peak views. These people build castles for a few million: CASTLEMAGIC Castle builders do something like their "music hall" or "four tower" castle and make the courtyard space a covered two story convention area (would have to upsize a bit to get 300,000 sq.ft. including courtyard area).

[Josseppie]

But would the city vote to pay for one?

[reginhild]

Originally Posted by Josseppie

But would the city vote to pay for one?

Hopefully, the city officials are considering projects that will raise city revenue in the future. A larger convention center could provide a boost in sales taxes as well as bring more companies to the city (again boosting revenues). I think many companies might consider Colorado Springs as a location if we had a good size convention center where they might be excluding us as a possible location currently because we don't have one.

The castle idea would insure the center got off to a good start as a place useable for other events, tourism, and possible permanent businesses where other cities' convention centers would stand empty for weeks. A castle visible from downtown would make a unique skyline for the United States similar to some European locations - likely to attract a fair increase in tourism and money for the city coffers.

[reginhild]

Here is the location I think a castle would be a good addition:

We already messed up the mountain by chopping off the top, why not add a beautiful castle as a landmark?
There is already a reclamation fund set up for the scarred areas from mining on the mountain: http://www.coloradomtnreclamation.com/

Hey, the the owner of the quarries is "Castle Concrete" - it would be a good match!

[PamelaOrr]

I'd hate to see another commercial building vacant so maybe if it moved to a building already built with a few tenant improvements to provide the space and the food court sufficient.

[reginhild]

Originally Posted by PamelaSellsHomes

I'd hate to see another commercial building vacant so maybe if it moved to a building already built with a few tenant improvements to provide the space and the food court sufficient.

I don't think there is anything available that would double the space of the current Phil Long Expo center. No need for a new center if you are not going to improve on the capacity of the exsisting one.

[Josseppie]

I just dont see voters passing such a big bond issue, so far they have rejected any idea to improve downtown.

[CS-Urbanist]

If a new CC, it MUST be downtown. I don't think I could tolerate another mindless decision made where moving a great civic piece anywhere outside of downtown. If it's on any ballot for anywhere other than downtown, I will personally persuade people all over town to get it shut down (which shouldn't be too hard in this town). However, if downtown, I will definately be for it completely!