Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

With remodeling delayed, Henderson struggles to fill Convention Center

When the Henderson City Council decided to delay a planned renovation of the city’s Convention Center, it meant the facility would not have to be closed for a year, as planned.

But the center will remain open without much to fill it. The closure had been on the calendar, and no bookings were taken for the period that it was supposed to be under construction.

City tourism employees have been scrambling to find business to fill the rooms and have had some luck, they said, but it may be a while before the center, which has recently hosted conventions, trade shows and presidential candidates, sees another significant event.

As part of a $28.5 million budget cut plan adopted Dec. 2, the City Council voted to delay several construction projects, including the Convention Center remodel. The project had originally been planned to be under way by March this year, but several delays pushed it into the fall.

By the time the city was able to accept construction bids in September, the bids all came in significantly over the project’s $10.3 million budget, and the city decided to reject them all and redesign the project.

As the economy continued to sour and tax revenue projections showed the city with a budget shortfall, the project was one of the first to be shelved.

“But the architecture and the design are done, so when things turn around, we’ll be ready to go,” Rob Brisendine, director of operations for the Henderson Department of Cultural Arts and Tourism, which operates the Convention Center.

The remodel remains an important part of the city’s ongoing plans to convert the Water Street District into a center for arts and culture, Brisendine said. In addition to the center’s planned facade renovation, expansion and equipment update, it would also house an art gallery.

Though the income the city sees from the convention center is relatively small, averaging less than $400,000 per year, Brisendine said the Convention Center is an important operation because it fills a need in the local market for affordable meeting places and provides an economic boost for small businesses in the Water Street District.

“It brings people downtown,” he said. “It infuses local businesses with cash and gets people staying in hotel rooms throughout the city.”

The Convention Center, combined with the outdoor Events Plaza behind it, bring more than 250,000 people to downtown Henderson each year, Brisendine said.

Jeremy Twitchell can be reached at 990-8928 or [email protected].

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