The front page article “Looking back at Lancaster County Convention Center’s first year” starts off:
“A year ago, amid anticipation and fanfare, the most expensive building project in Lancaster history opened its doors. The Lancaster County Convention Center and Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square hotel, with a combined $177.6 million price tag, was heralded as a project that would bring thousands of people and millions of dollars to the city and county. A year later, backers of the once-controversial project contend it is meeting expectations.”
WATCHDOG: This sycophantic article harkens back to past days of Newspaper bias reporting concerning the Convention Center Project, some that has landed them in Chester County Court defending a libel suit.
There isn’t a scintilla of hard evidence in the article concerning whether the project is meeting marketing and financial budgets. Also the accounts of how much business is being brought to downtown are anecdotal and questionable. Note the sources – the convention center salesman and the mayor!
The claim of bringing new business ignores that much of it, such as the American Quilter’s Society show, is simply being displaced from a venue on Rt. 30 East.
Buried at the end of the article we find “’They’re bringing business in and that’s great, but what do we have? We have a Subway,’ said Randolph Carney, a city resident who has regularly attended Convention Center Authority meetings for years.”
And what about all the good things that might otherwise have been done with but a fraction of the $177.6 million? We have mortgaged our rights to state funding for a decade.
Three million dollars in state funds promised to the Lancaster Public Library (Duke Street) towards its renovation and expansion were diverted to paying overages for the Convention Center. Almost 1500 visitors a day must make due with a crowded, inadequate facility designed for the middle of the 20th Century.
When all is said and done, we predict the only real winner will have been the High Group that benefited from tens of millions in revenue from development, construction, and now equitable ownership of the Marriott Hotel.
The editors should be ashamed for pandering so blatantly to their bosses on the fourth floor and Penn Square Partners.
Should we have expected any less from LNP?? It would be interesting to read the ‘real’ bottom line from a dollars and cents standpoint. Is the revenue meeting / exceeding expenses?
With the bulk of financing coming from taxpayers, I believe that there should be total accountability to the public as to what income is being generated for the convention center; and what the offsetting expenses are. I realize that we probably won’t ever be given these figures, let alone an independent analysis of the income/expenses of the hotel…..but it would ceretainly make interesting reading to see what OUR dollars are accomplishing (or not). Too bad that LNP is not an ‘independent’ source of news/reporting.
I recently met with a professional from Phila. that is wanting to relocate to Lancaster. Her experience in Hospitality is vast as she is currently doing something in Phila and was with the Covention Center in the past.
I told her the story as well as the set up with floors 3 and 4 of the center with High.
I showed her the amount of money given to Interstate to go out and market at shows this center and hotel.
Her response was that the money was wasted as we can not compete at large shows with what we here in Lancaster County have to offer. Also, one has to be creative with a complex as ours as people are very lazy and want on site parking that they will pay for.
After about an hour, she decided to look into other areas for employment as her professional opinion is that this complex will not make money as it currently exists.
I have ONE big question to ask? How much did the local merchants make off of the events? If this is such a great attraction, then why is not all the commercial space rented and bought up?
Tom Beckett, the financial advisor for the convention center, has publicly stated several times the convention center will not be profitable and is projected to have a net operating loss of about a million dollars a year.