Second-Chance Cities

Minneapolis

When Dale Shuter, meetings and exposition manager for the Electrical Apparatus Service Association, confirmed Minneapolis as the site for this year’s annual convention, her attendees were bewildered by the choice. Why Minneapolis? Compared to Las Vegas, where the group met in 2006, this seemed to be a downgrade. By the time the June meeting ended, however, most had changed their minds.

“People tend to think that because it’s not New York, Chicago or Vegas, it’s not worth it,” Shuter says. “But our post-convention survey revealed that Minneapolis received higher marks for overall location than Vegas did.”

Though second-tier cities might not have the largest hotels or most glittering ballrooms, a number of them are committing major dollars to revamp their downtowns, expand their convention facilities and build unique cultural venues. The following, all classic American cities that have had their ups and downs, are working hard to prove they are back in the game and well worth a second look.

St. Louis

Thanks in large part to some creative urban renewal, St. Louis is poised to attract lots of new meetings business. Indeed, hotel room bookings are up by 20 percent this year over the average for the past five years; the revamped America’s Center convention complex now offers an expansive 502,000 square feet of exhibit space; some 7,000 hotel rooms are now available within a mile radius of the center, and the city is beginning to see the fruits of a massive $3.5 billion investment in its downtown.

A fitting symbol of St. Louis’ revitalization is the transformation taking place in the Washington Avenue loft district, long removed from its 1920s heyday as the center of a bustling garment industry. “Ten years ago, the area was dotted with empty and abandoned warehouses,” says Donna Andrews, a spokesperson for the St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission. “Today, we’re preserving the look and feel of these original, historical structures.”

The result is a burgeoning new neighborhood of trendy lofts, restaurants and art galleries, anchored by the convention center complex. Last December, the effort was rewarded by a prestigious award for urban development from the U.K.-based nonprofit World Leadership Forum; St. Louis beat out more than 400 applicants from around the globe.

Planners are beginning to take notice of the altering cityscape. Jeff Johnston, meeting services director for the Memphis, Tenn.-based American Contract Bridge League, had not been to St. Louis since 1997, but he recently returned with a group of 7,000. “There were a variety of hotels for different tastes and budgets,” he says. “Our group pays their own way, so rates are very important to them. And downtown life in general is much improved. It used to be more sleepy, but now it seems as though every building has some kind of new development going on.”

Coming soon is the $495 million Lumiere Place, built by Pinnacle Entertainment in the Laclede’s Landing district, near the famed Gateway Arch. Spanning nine blocks along the Mississippi River, the project will feature a massive casino, opening by year’s end, connected via pedestrian walkway to St. Louis’ first Four Seasons hotel, set to debut in 2008 with 200 guest rooms, a 12,000-square-foot spa and 18,000 square feet of meeting space.

Kansas City, Mo.

“In the mid-1970s, Kansas City was one of America’s top destinations, but during the ’80s and ’90s, things began to change,” says Rick Hughes, president of the Kansas City Convention & Visitors Association. Affluent residents moved to the suburbs, he notes, while new major interstate highways began to circumvent the city rather than provide a path to it. “We found ourselves with vacant office buildings -- not a fertile or conducive environment for holding conventions.”

To help formulate a plan to attract more meetings business, the CVA asked planners for input and got a clear message in return: Fix up the downtown area. The city has since poured $7 billion into its revival. Within the convention center district alone, $4.5 billion in development is underway, including renovations to the Kansas City Convention Center, whose centerpiece will be a new 46,484-square-foot ballroom.

More than half of the 3,799 hotel rooms in Kansas City’s downtown have been renovated in the past year, and the effort is paying off. During the first half of 2007, bookings increased by 79 percent from last year, with meetings on the books for future years up a total of 31 percent.

“The hotel community, convention center and CVB worked as a unified front, and the quality of labor, on both the management and hourly levels, was outstanding,” says Ged Matthews, conference manager for Atlanta-based planning firm S. Stuart & Associates, who brought a group of 4,300 to the city this past spring. Also impressive, he says, was the level of customer service experienced by the group.

The word is getting out: Convention center bookings are up 27 percent from last year. The new Sprint Center, a $276 million sports and event complex opening this month with an 18,500-seat arena, is attracting business such as the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry’s 2009 meeting, an event that will bring 20,000 attendees to the area.

“We also learned to take into consideration the planner’s 10-8-6 approach to the 24-hour day,” says Hughes of the planner input the bureau received. By this he means a ratio of 10 hours for time spent at the hotel, eight hours for the program agenda and six hours of flexible time. “That last six hours of ‘swing’ time, when attendees have the freedom to meet in a more casual setting, is often when the real business takes place,” Hughes says. “Providing a place to do that was the missing piece of the equation for us.”

To fill in the gap, the city built two new major cultural facilities -- the National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art -- and expanded the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art by adding the striking new 840-foot-long Bloch Building, which was unveiled this past June. The new wing, constructed like an overturned tower resting on its side, houses collections of contemporary and African art and the museum’s famed Hallmark collection of American photography. The lobby, surrounded by towering glass walls, can accommodate groups of up to 900 for a reception.

The city, having committed $2.4 billion in further construction over the next three years, seems set on breathing new life into the song lyric, “Kansas City, here I come.”

Oklahoma City

In the early 1990s, representatives of Oklahoma City’s political, business and residential communities gathered to deal with a crisis: The local economy was reeling in the wake of a four-year period that saw the price of the state’s crude oil fall by more than a third. “The downtown area was very depressed,” says Alan Sims, director of convention sales and services for the Oklahoma Convention & Visitors Bureau. “We struggled to get meetings and conventions to come here.”

“We needed a major concentration downtown to attract visitors,” says Cynthia Reid, vice president of the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber.

A plan was hammered out to create 10 metropolitan-area projects, or MAPS, designed to redevelop the city’s entertainment, sports and convention facilities. A sales tax was implemented to support the program, and the city got down to work. The results have been impressive. Since the inception of the MAPS plan, $369 million in development has been completed, including a renovation of the Cox Business Services Convention Center, now offering more than 100,000 square feet of meeting space, a 15,000-seat arena and a 25,000-square-foot ballroom; the creation of the Bricktown Canal pedestrian district, where new restaurants and entertainment venues line a two-mile stretch of the Oklahoma River; and construction of the new Southwestern Bell Bricktown Ballpark.

Another result: Hotel bookings attributable to meetings and conventions have risen 61 percent in the past two years.

A second phase of development will involve expanding the downtown area and building a new convention headquarters hotel. Spring 2008 will see the launch of tour boat service along the Oklahoma River, connecting various meeting sites with a host of attractions such as Oklahoma State Fair Park.

Minneapolis

An arts renaissance is altering the skyline and leading the way to attracting more meetings to Minneapolis. Within the past two years alone, six major cultural venues in the city have gained impressive expansions or moved to striking new buildings.

One notable example is the new Guthrie Theater, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel. The lobby area, known as the “endless bridge,” extends 12 stories above ground level, projects out over the Mississippi River and can host up to 2,000 people for evening cocktail receptions. The venue has three theaters, the largest of which can accommodate groups of up to 1,100.

Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is undergoing massive improvements as well. An ongoing $3.1 billion expansion includes features such as an underground tram to connect parking structures, a new 10-gate terminal, and additional shopping and dining facilities, all slated to come online by 2010.

The city is now ready to work on another pressing need, notes Greg Ortale, president of Meet Minneapolis, the city’s convention and visitors bureau. “Several feasibility studies have proven hands-down that the necessity for a convention center hotel is justified,” he says. “We’re looking at a 1,200-room property, which probably will break ground in the next 12 to 14 months.” The $315 million project will feature a 90,000-square-foot ballroom. Meanwhile, five major hotels will be open by next summer, including three luxury properties from Starwood Hotels and Resorts.

Cincinnati

When Dan Lincoln arrived from Baltimore as president and CEO of the Cincinnati USA Convention & Visitors Bureau in early 2006, the CVB had gone through five presidents in as many years, and strategic leadership had suffered as a result.

Lincoln and his team promptly conducted a nationwide survey of planners to gauge the perception of Cincinnati as a meetings destination. The results reflected the city’s sluggish rate of bookings: 77 percent of respondents had no image at all of the city, and almost all of the rest admitted to having a negative image.

Much of the ill will stemmed from rioting that broke out in the city in the spring of 2001, when a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed African-American man. “A boycott by African Americans and other socially conscious groups was imposed on the city,” explains Julie Calvert, vice president of marketing and strategic development for the bureau, “which limited the number of meetings held here until race relations were resolved.”

The conspicuous lack of a sizable convention center was another chronic complaint expressed by meeting planners.

Today, with racial relations improved and $2 billion in development now pouring into downtown, Cincinnati clearly is on the upswing.

“We cleared our goal of 160,000 room bookings last year and will surpass our goal again this year, which we set a little higher,” says Calvert. One key has been a shift in the bureau’s marketing strategy. “We have tried to increase business by targeting specific customers rather than geographic regions,” Calvert explains.

Two years ago the bureau began to focus solely on meetings and conventions, allowing Cincinnati USA to handle tourism on its own. An ambitious new advertising campaign currently is underway, and a new website strictly for planners will launch early this winter.

Among the many signs of renewal is the $135 million expansion of the Duke Energy Center, the city’s convention facility, which now offers 750,000 square feet of meeting and exhibition space. Approximately 6,000 hotel rooms are available within a one-mile radius, with 3,400 rooms in downtown alone. And dozens of new restaurants have opened within a few easily walked blocks of the center.

Within what Dan Lincoln describes as the “critical mass” of central Cincinnati is the Fountain Square District, a reconfigured, public gathering space featuring new garden landscaping, lighting, free Wi-Fi access and a water wall cascading over patterns of newly inlaid granite.

Other investment dollars have gone into revamping several unique venues with large-scale meeting spaces, from the cheerfully retro Great American Ballpark overlooking the riverfront to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, a $65 million, 158,000-square-foot facility commemorating the fight against slavery in the United States.

“Cincinnati has never been more capable of hosting 75 percent of today’s meetings,” Lincoln asserts. “If a meeting planner hasn’t been to Cincinnati within the past six months to a year, they’ll find that it’s completely different.”