Meetings & Conventions: Newsline
SKITTISH INVESTORS KEEP CONVENTION CENTER PROPERTIES IN
LIMBO
Financing Stalls Headquarters Hotels
A rendering of Pittsburgh’s skyline shows a completed
convention center (the low-rise building at left) but no new
affiliated hotel.
Obtaining financing for headquarters hotels
has become a Herculean task, as developers sit on projects and
banks shy away from hotel lending. As construction sites remain
quiet, cities can tout only a vision of a convention property when
selling themselves to planners. “The lack of a headquarters hotel
takes us out of the running for 200 to 300 conventions a year,”
said Nicki E. Grossman, president of the Greater Fort Lauderdale
Convention & Visitors Bureau. For five years, the city had
planned to build a 500-room hotel at the convention center. The
deal was killed when Wyndham walked away in late 2001, after
disputes over the terms of the lease.
Selling the city remains an uphill battle. “The question often
on page one of a contract is, ‘Do you have a headquarters hotel?’
When we say ‘No,’ no one turns to page two,” said Grossman.
Bryan Maher, the New York City-based senior lodging, gaming and
leisure analyst at Credit Lyonnais Securities, is not optimistic
that Grossman’s predicament will ease. “We have seen multiyear
record levels of new room supply,” he said, “but now the market is
weak, and lenders are skittish about financing large hotels,
especially those in the $100 million range.”
Maher expects little change in the next two years. Among other
cities facing similar circumstances: • In West Palm Beach, Fla.,
plans to build a Starwood-managed, 350-room hotel next to the Palm
Beach County Convention Center were shaky at press time. When the
center opens in August 2003, it will likely be without a hotel, due
to lack of financing.
• After about a year of trying to get a convention hotel built,
Denver’s Mayor Wellington Webb said the city would pay for the
project. Four management firms are on the short list to run the
hotel, which would open in 2005.
• San Antonio’s deal for a new $250 million, 1,000-plus-room
hotel, in the pipeline for six years, fell through in May. City
officials were set to meet with hotel investors and financiers in
June to reassess the market and funding options for a property to
open in 2006.
• In Pittsburgh, a design dispute has kept a headquarters
property from joining the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, set
for completion in March 2003. Competing developers have submitted
new proposals, but the city must wait for state approval of public
subsidies, according to Robert Imperata, executive vice president
of the Greater Pittsburgh CVB.
• In Boston, Starwood Hotels & Resorts has been given until
February 2003 an extra year to come up with the monies to build a
1,200-room headquarters hotel at the new 1.7 million-square-foot
Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, set to open in June
2004.
• A four-acre plot next to the Baltimore Convention Center has
been earmarked for a major hotel for more than three years. Hyatt
Hotels Corp. and Peter Angelos, owner of the Baltimore Orioles,
plan to develop and manage the hotel, but the project has yet to
obtain enough financing. The city needs an 800- to 1,000-room
property with 100,000 square feet of function space, said Carroll
Armstrong, president and CEO of the Baltimore Area Convention &
Visitors Association.
• TERENCE BAKER AND SARAH J.F. BRALEY
What Association Executives
Earn
The gender gap in earnings grows in relation to size
of organization, according to a 2001 compensation survey.
Male CEOs
Female CEOs
Trade association
$136,775
$92,125
Individual membership association
$139,241
$85,204
Total staff size:
2 or fewer
$75,000
$60,000
3 to 5
$95,640
$77,000
6 to 10
$116,550
$108,000
11 to 20
$138,200
$126,000
21 to 50
$201,923
$159,280
51 to 100
$237,900
$145,518
More than 100
$287,600
$249,233
Total annual budget:
$300,000 or less
$67,600
$54,789
$300,001 to $500,000
$75,600
$68,579
$500,001 to $750,000
$90,000
$72,800
$750,001 to $1 million
$102,000
$87,525
$1,000,001 to $2.5 million
$118,800
$112,425
$2,500,001 to $5 million
$170,000
$137,100
$5,000,001 to $10 million
$227,750
$160,585
$10,000,001 to $15 million
$225,994
$171,750
More than $15 million
$285,000
$256,269
Source:
American Society of Association Executives
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