Category All Art Classes Classical Music Concerts DANCE Etc Exhibits Families Farmers Markets Film Happenings Holiday Holiday Lectures Music (non-classical) Theater

Submit events

PHOTO BY JOHN LARSON

CENTER OF ATTENTION. Management of Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center would like to see more hotels to join the two in the neighborhood, Courtyard by Marriott and Hotel Murano.

Center management wants more hotels for conventioneers

By John Larson

By the end of this year, Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center will have lost more business in its fourth and fifth years than it booked in its first three. The reason is a lack of nearby hotel rooms, according to David Bobo, who manages the four-year-old facility.

Since the beginning of 2007, the center has lost 53 conventions or trade shows that would have amounted to 80,152 room nights.

Bobo discussed the situation during a recent meeting of Tacoma City Council’s Economic Development Committee.

There are two hotels within walking distance. Courtyard by Marriott, located across the street, has 150 rooms. Hotel Murano a block away has 319. Bobo would like to see 600 in the vicinity.

Spokane expanded its convention center, making it somewhat larger than Tacoma’s. Spokane has 4,000 hotel rooms within walking distance of its center.

As director of public assembly facilities, Mike Combs is Bobo’s direct supervisor. There is land directly south of the center that was intended for future expansion of the facility. Combs said there is potential to build a hotel on that parcel that could have between 400 to 450 rooms.

With the recent announcement that the U.S. Open will come to Chambers Bay in University Place in 2015, Combs wants Tacoma prepared for the influx of golf fans who will attend the prestigious event.

“In seven years, I would hate to look at this skyline and not see two or three more hotels,” Combs said.

Bobo noted some city governments are getting into the business of building hotels to assist their convention centers. “That is not something I would necessarily recommend.”

Carmen McIntyre, sales manager for the convention center, told council members that business travel is up nationwide. McIntyre, who used to work at the Sheraton (now Hotel Murano), said the ideal situation would be to have a hotel in the 500-room range attached to the center.

At one point that was in the plans. Early designs had a hotel built above the center. City leaders later scrapped that idea, as landing a hotel operator was not coming together and they did not want to halt construction of the center. A parcel across the street was identified for hotel use, and eventually the Marriot was built on that site.

There are three hotel projects in the works downtown.

A Seattle developer wants to build one on Thea Foss Waterway, which would not qualify as within walking distance. He has struggled to secure financing.

Prium Properties purchased the Winthrop Apartments with plans to convert it back to its former use as a luxury hotel. Under terms of an agreement with the city, Prium would have to give the residents of the low-income apartment building a year to find new homes before renovation could begin.

Another developer wants to build a hotel on the site of the former Heidelberg Brewery, about six blocks south of the convention center.

The city plans to hire a consultant to analyze the hotel market later this year.

Story Tools