City gets a do-over on convention center hotel

The moment the ground was broken on the convention center site, the debate of whether or not Wilmington can support such a facility was over.  Now we need to come together as a community and support this effort.  The key component to the success of the convention center is a true convention center hotel on the site next to the center.

The ability to correct a mistake is one of life’s beautiful things.  The Wilmington City Council gets a rare “do-over” as it relates to the selection of a hotel developer to build a first class convention hotel.

The city had settled on an undersized, limited service, little known hotel brand to be the centerpiece of our downtown revitalization. What a mistake this would have been.

I arrived in town after the dust had settled on the proposed Marriott and later Embassy Suites projects that had failed for one reason or another.  Either hotel would have been a nice complement to the convention center.  Two plus years later and six missed deadline extensions by Wilmington River Group, and the city council is left holding a room key to a hotel to be determined that won’t be built by the time the center opens next year.

A hotel with 150 rooms (Hotel Indigo) is too small to support most of the groups that are going to be booking at the convention center. The hotel would only be able to commit about 50 percent of their rooms to functions booked at the convention center. Its remaining sleeping room inventory would typically be set aside for corporate or leisure transient travelers. In this scenario we would have a hotel adjacent to the convention center that could only block 75 rooms for a convention that may need 250-500 rooms on a given night.

In order to solicit and accommodate functions the size of the new convention center, we need a 250-plus room full service hotel such as an Embassy Suites, Marriott, Renaissance or Sheraton adjacent to the center.  Hotel Indigo is a fresh new brand, but not a “convention” hotel.  In order for us as a community to attract the larger statewide or regional conventions and conferences, there needs to be a first class, full-service hotel adjacent to the convention center.

With a full-service hotel, we will be able to attract larger groups that will have a tremendous economic impact on our entire community.  All businesses benefit from having large conventions downtown. The hotels, restaurants, attractions and retail outside of the downtown area also realize the economic impact of downtown hotel rooms filled. A ripple effect, if you will.

If the City Council settles for another 150 room hotel in that space, the convention center will be booked with groups that will generate much less economic impact on our community. With all due respect to gun shows, home and garden shows, reunions and weddings, this is not why Wilmington is building this convention center.

Take a look at cities around the region.  In North Charleston, Concord and Hampton Roads, Va., beautiful Embassy Suites hotels support their convention centers.  All three were developed and are managed by the same developer who proposed a similar project here. Along the I-40 corridor, Raleigh has a brand new convention center and a 400-room high-rise Marriott connected to their facility. Greensboro has its convention hotel. Winston-Salem has an Embassy Suites and Marriott connected to its facility. Myrtle Beach has a Sheraton connected to their center and New Bern has a Hilton Hotel adjacent to their convention center.

As far as the Riverside Hilton and Best Western Coastline Inn, they are beautiful hotels, but cannot fill the void and become the primary convention hotels.  They both have their own meeting space that is tied to their inventory of rooms. Large groups considering our convention center will be looking for a full-service hotel connected to the facility, not nearby. Cobbling together enough rooms among multiple nearby hotels is not conducive for most groups.

The inability of the Wilmington River Group to secure financing for the Hotel Indigo project is a golden opportunity for the city to correct a situation that would have been made worse had the hotel been given the green light to be built.

We live in a first-class city; a city that deserves the very best for our residents and visitors alike.  This is our time to shine; our time to compete with Myrtle Beach and Charleston by finding the right partner on this project.  This do-over, if done right, will have a positive economic impact on our community for years to come. 

Wilmington City Council, I urge you to take a serious look at the size and brand of the hotel that will sit next to the convention center.  This is your do-over. 

Kip Damrow is the President of Wilmington Area Hospitality Association and is Wilmington Director of Sales for Alliance Hospitality which manages the Courtyard by Marriott and Hilton Garden Inn.