To [anonymous comment] – how exactly is [“Close it and be done”] going to help? Isn’t downtown Lancaster struggling enough without having yet ‘another’ empty building bringing things down?
Instead of so many people fighting, still, about whether this convention center should have opened, why not help keep it going and bring more traffic/business to downtown Lancaster. Whatever happened to community solidarity?
Lancaster City has the potential to be such a gorgeous little downtown area, especially with things like Central Market, First Friday and the Ladies’ Night event they were doing on the third Fridays of the month. I don’t know if they are still doing that, but it was a fun thing.
So many downtown businesses seem to be going out of business and leaving abandoned window shops, that to push the convention center/Marriott to close will just promote the downward spiral and eventually turn Lancaster City into a full-fledged slum or into a ghost town.
The convention center is indeed “too big to fail”, as you pointed out, and the same powerful interests that got it built will use the same kinds of tactics to make certain it stays open. However, there is absolutely positively NOTHING that any private citizen or community group can do to change its fortunes in any way at all.
Interstate Hotels and Resorts – High’s hand-picked joint manager of the “integrated facility” hotel and convention center – negotiates directly with meeting planners to arrange for events. Quite frankly, rates in both the convention center and the hotel are so high that only sizable or wealthy groups can afford to lease space there. People who work for a living need not apply.