Convention market targeted

Jeffrey Libby

Friday, Nov. 23, 2001 | 9:58 a.m.

Conventioneers in Henderson are mostly local, arriving by car on rundown Water Street for Weight Watchers meetings, Mary Kay cosmetics sales, supermarket job fairs, services at fledgling churches, and even for high school proms.

Most leave without shopping or eating at nearby downtown businesses.

But Lisa Jolley, executive director of the Henderson Convention Center and the Visitors Bureau, says her modest facility may be re-invented.

There is cautious talk in city planning circles of expanding the city's convention market beyond its current 750-mile radius.

The phrase on their lips is this: executive conference facility.

It's a phrase that prompts Mayor Jim Gibson and City Manager Phil Speight to talk of their concern for the economic health of businesses along the main thoroughfare of the struggling downtown.

That's because some say an executive conference facility should be a new building, and that it should be built closer to Green Valley, where there are more hotels within walking distance of more shops and restaurants. There are also more hotels planned for construction there, while none are proposed for the downtown.

The two existing downtown motels would be hard-pressed to accommodate a convention of more than 75 people.

If the convention center moved, Gibson and Speight say, it could hurt efforts to revive the downtown. At the same time, Gibson said he doubts the convention center can attract bigger and more lucrative crowds until after the downtown gains momentum.

Owners of Water Street restaurants and of the few retail shops that might encourage foot traffic, however, say current conventioneers do little to help create that momentum.

"When they have a convention that lasts a day or two, we do see some people come in here," Jim Jensen, owner of the Lotus Restaurant, said. His Chinese restaurant is across the street from the convention center.

"But a lot of what we see there is small stuff, weddings, that kind of thing. With those we don't pick up much," Jensen said.

Although the convention center is 33,000 square feet, only 13,800 are available for rent.

Spokeswomen for the Eldorado Casino and the Rainbow Casino, also next door to the convention center, reported slight, but measureable jumps in the lunch crowds for some conventions and even the occasional "herd" of people wearing the tell-tale nametags. But like Jensen, they said conventioneers are not a significant part of their business.

Jan McWhirter, owner for 17 years of Tempting Treasures by Jan, a candy and cake decorating store, is three blocks from the convention center. To get to her shop, conventioneers would have to stroll past five empty storefronts, two bail bonds businesses, a specialty pipe shop, court-referred counseling services, a few realty offices, two hair and nail shops and a chiropractor.

She has seen just two conventioneers in the past year, both from a Lutheran convention, she said.

"I get more customers from Comdex (in Las Vegas) than from the Henderson conventions," McWhirter said.

But she said she still would like to see the convention center stay downtown. "I want to see Henderson grow," she said. "I don't want them to take anything away."

Jolley said the city probably won't make any decisions until Clarion and Associates, a Colorado-based planning firm, completes an $80,000 study of the convention center's relationship to the downtown businesses. The firm won't complete market research for several months.

But an executive conference facility would give Henderson a niche in the Las Vegas Valley, Jolley said. It would also solve the problem of limited hotel room space in the downtown.

Rather than trying to compete with the giant exposition halls and conference rooms like those in Las Vegas, an executive conference facility would play host to groups of about 200, providing one-stop, high-end hotel, catering and transportation services.

The nearest such facility is in Scottsdale, Ariz., Jolley said.

Building the first such facility in the valley would be an ambitious plan, Jolley said, but it could be the edge her small convention center and visitor's bureau needs to compete. She earns most of her $1.76 million annual budget through hotel room taxes and gaming and rental fees. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, by comparison, works with a $176 million budget -- 100 times the funding.

Yet Henderson appears poised for some type of convention facility upgrade.

In the past four years, hotel rooms have jumped from 300 to 2,225, according to convention bureau records. By 2006, Jolley said, she expects 17 proposed projects to more than double that -- to more than 5,000 rooms.

By 2003 two hotels under construction and other ongoing projects will add 90,000 square feet of convention space to about 70,000 square feet available today.

Nationally, a city with a population of 200,000 has an average of 313,000 square feet of convention space. So if Henderson can successfully sell itself as a cheaper, quieter neighbor of Las Vegas, a new convention facility close to a hotel should do well, Jolley says.

"Henderson still has that small-town hospitality, but with the amenities of a big city," Jolley said. "That's what we have. The city just has to decide what our purpose (at the convention center) is. It's difficult to be the site for local community-based organizations and also be a convention center at the same time."

In the meantime the convention center is attracting more people each year. In 2000, the convention center held about 100 events each month, attracting 400,000 guests for the year. Ten years ago, eight events in a month would have been remarkable, Jolley said.

But those increases have meant little for small businesses on Water Street like Mari-Rene Alu's embroidery shop, Monograms, Magic and More. Like McWhirter, Alu says she sees little convention foot traffic. She does more business through Las Vegas contacts.

She said she would like to see the convention center demolished to make way for a community center that could stage plays and focus on helping the weekly farmers market thrive.

"The convention center doesn't express that there's other things downtown," Alu said.