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This morning, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a $1 Billion expansion of the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City. Construction will start soon, and will require the demolition of the North Hall, built in 2008. That space is best known to comics fans as the site of New York Comic Con’s artist […]

It’s not just San Diego which is having problems funding convention center growth. Many other cities, citing city pride and tourism dollars, are trying to attract a finite (if not shrinking) market of trade show business. If tourism boards are smart, they will start to mentor local promoters to stage annual consumer shows, which will […]

The San Diego Marriott Marquis (then known as the Intercontinental), under construction c.1983? (It opened in April 1984.)

The Marriott Marquis, c.1989 (The Grand Hyatt opened in 1992.)

As was mentioned in a recent Comic-Con blog post, the Marriott Hall in San Diego has been demolished to make way for a new, larger ballroom facility.

Harbor Drive, on the left of the map, is the street which runs in front of the Convention Center. On the right is the marina and waterfront.

The project has three components:

1. Marriott Hall

   • “A lower exhibit hall level consisting of 35,900 square feet of exhibit space, 19,800 square feet of pre-function space (such as a gathering area for conference check-ins, cocktail space or exhibit space), 16,200 square feet of back of house space;
   • “A 6,500-square foot mezzanine level; and
   • “An upper ballroom level containing 35,900 square feet of ballroom space and 25,200 square feet of pre-function space, and 11,800 square feet of back house space.”  [Hall H = 64,842 sq.ft.]

2. Marina Terrace

   • “…a 25,000 square-foot flexible outdoor area used for hotel events such as cocktail parties, receptions, and luncheons up to 15% of the year. When not in use for outdoor hotel events, Marina Terrace will be accessible for use by the public as an open gathering and activity space 85% of the year.”

   

3. Marina Walk

   • “…a minimum 50-foot-wide public accessway containing a 40-foot-wide public pedestrian access corridor and a 10-foot-wide landscape buffer, adjacent to the Hyatt parking structure, containing palm trees, evergreen canopy trees and drought resistant, non-invasive plants. Marina Walk will widen to 80 feet as it approaches the Embarcadero Promenade, and will widen to 145 feet at the Harbor Drive gateway to Marina Walk.”

The highlights:

• 27,000 square feet of ballroom and meeting space above a 25,000 square foot parking area replaced by two ballrooms, each with 35,900 square feet of exhibition space.
• Relocation of cooling towers.
• Removal of surface parking along the marina.  (Check out this street view of what exists now!)
• A new restroom! (Behind Sally’s Restaurant.)

Hotel owners plan to have the $70 Million project completed by next Summer.

Via Mark Evanier’s blog, I discovered two tidbits of interesting news:

• The Riviera Hotel and Casino, one of the oldest on the Vegas Strip, was sold to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority for $182.5 Million.
• The  San Diego Convention Center Corporation decided to default on a final payment due of nearly $13.8 million on a 6-acre parcel of land behind the convention center.

Let’s start with San Diego.  Here are the basic facts:

1. The convention center wants to expand, and has developed plans.
2. It would cost $520 Million, increase the size of the Center by a third, and be completed by early 2016.
3. Funding would have come from a special taxation district.  Judicial review approved the funding plan, and the California Coastline Commission approved the design.
4. In August of last year, a California appeals court ruled the taxation scheme unconstitutional.  The City did not appeal, and now must either put the plan on the ballot (unlikely to pass given previous votes, two-thirds majority required) or find a different way to fund the expansion.  (This is a frequent problem with convention centers. Locals refuse to vote for expansion, as they see it as a further tax burden.)
5. Part of the expansion includes land behind the convention center. Fifth Avenue Landing currently leases the land from the Port of San Diego, and has an option to build a 400-room hotel on the property.  The lease expires in nine years.
6. With funding unlikely, the Convention Center defaulted on a final payment to Fifth Avenue Landing, to the surprise of the city council.  Without that 6-acre parcel, a contiguous design is in doubt.
7. The Convention Center has spent $10 Million so far on the plans for expansion.

So… the Convention Center has a budget problem, due to all the paperwork, with some maintenance being deferred. The Center must redesign the original plans if they wish to go forward with the expansion. The City needs to find a source of funding which is legal and attractive to the local populace. Meanwhile, the San Diego Chargers are campaigning for a new stadium downtown, and might skedaddle to Los Angeles if their demands are not met.  There has even been a proposal of a joint stadium-convention center.  Of course, one would ask how the financing would work… perhaps the city fathers appeal to both the pop culture geeks and the sports geeks by building a subterranean convention center beneath a new football stadium to the east of Petco Park.

Otherwise, the San Diego Chargers and/or Comic-Con International could leave the city, dealing a blow to the city’s pride.

Okay…  this next one is for you armchair architects.  It doesn’t have much to do with comic cons, but it could…

Currently the Las Vegas Convention Center, located in beautiful Winchester, Nevada, offers over 1.9 Million square feet of exhibition space, placing it third behind Chicago and Orlando.  As with other convention centers (see above), Las Vegas has stated that they have had to turn away roughly 20 shows due to a lack of space.  Other shows are growing and could use more space in Las Vegas.  (It should be noted that Mandalay Bay and Venetian/Sands also have large convention centers nearby.)

The answer?  Buy a casino.  For $182.5 Million. (At $7 Million an acre, that’s a pretty good deal for a property on the Strip.) The Riviera Hotel and Casino, to be precise, one of the original casinos on the Strip, and one with a marginal history. (If you want to grab some memorabilia, or a cheap mattress, the hotel clearance sale starts Thursday!) Located in the superblock west of the current North Hall, the 26-acre lot will be used to expand the convention center further, as well as create the Las Vegas Global Business District.

This is not the first casino the LVCVA has purchased.  The Landmark Hotel and Casino (seen being destroyed in Mars Attacks) was purchased for $16.7 Million in 1993, and turned into a parking lot.

The highlights:

• Cost: $2.3 Billion.  (Immediate funds come from the bank credit facility with JPMorgan, long-term bonds to be issued within the next two years.)
• How will they pay off the debt?  Via convention center revenue, and a hotel tax on Vegas’ (Clark County’s) 140,000 hotel rooms. (Current estimate, about $150 Million annually from hotel taxes, at a rate of 12% on the Strip.)
• 480,000 new attendees expected.  (Take this with a bit of skepticism.  Many convention centers inflate attendance when announcing expansions.)  The LVCVA states that current annual attendance is approximately 1.2 Million.
• 750,000 square feet of new exhibit space and 187,500 square feet of supporting meeting space will be added as part of the new 1.8-million-square-foot expansion.
• The current convention center will be renovated afterwards, adding 200,000 square feet to the current site, and bringing the total square footage to… 5.7 Million square feet!  (Currently, 3.2 Million)

Here’s a little map I created, via the Clark County GIS. Bright yellow are the lots the LVCVA owns. Muted yellow are the structures on the property. The Riviera site is highlighted, and I’ve tagged each parcel in that block with the prices (if known, in Millions) from the last sale recorded.

The parcels below that block, between Convention Center Drive and Desert Inn Road are mostly hotels, condominiums, and… the Guardian Angel Cathedral, the parish seat of the diocese of Las Vegas.  Which, surprisingly for Catholic cathedrals and Vegas, is rather nondescript and low key.  The big white spaces in the upper right and lower left are golf courses.

Here’s the Google Map of the area:

As you can see, most of that land is underutilized.  I stayed at the Roadway Inn when I attended the American Library Association conference last year, and much of the surrounding real estate is post-apocalyptic.  It doesn’t help that the North Strip has usually been low-rent, smaller and less-competitive than the mega-resorts to the south.

Two big developments, the Fontainebleau Resort Las Vegas (1018 rooms) to the north of the Riviera, and Resorts World Las Vegas (3000 rooms, eventually 6583) to the east, are either in stasis or just getting back to construction, after being halted by the Great Recession and bankruptcy proceedings.  With the Convention Center being on the Strip, it should boost the neighborhood.  I don’t anticipate other hotels being developed nearby, as these two projects will cover most of the demand.  (A third casino at The New Frontier site has yet to be officially announced.)

Looking at the conceptual artwork, it seems that the LVCVA plans to develop the lower half of the block as well, although that could be limited to the parking lot that currently exists.

Having walked from the Strip to the Center, as well as from the shuttle buses and monorail, I do hope they fill in the parking lots in the front of the convention center.  It’s prime real estate, the parking can be sited underground, and the broiling heat can be avoided as one walks from the shuttle buses or monorail.

The big deal?  Like McCormick, all of the buildings will be connected, and offer millions of square feet of both exhibition and meeting space. San Diego currently offers 525,701 square feet of exhibition space (Halls A-H). Hall S could easily accommodate that acreage (908,496 square feet), and still have space left over, along with Halls C and N! Or Sands Expo could host the show, with fans never having to leave the building the entire weekend! (Seriously… 7,000 rooms in the Venetian and Palazzo.)

But we’ve discussed this all before, and will again, as CCI’s contract with San Diego expires in 2016.

Meanwhile, if you’re curious about how Las Vegas could host a media carnival such as Comic-Con, take a look at the Rock in Rio musical festival happening this weekend and last.  It’s taking place on a lot that’s 25 acres in size. (Halls A-H? Half that space.)

With attendance of 151,000, this year’s NYCC is now the biggest reported North American comics convention, surpassing the San Diego Comic Con’s 130,000. According to show runner Lance Fensterman, the increase of 20,000 from last year was due to selling tickets for a full day Thursday, which was previously a half-day “pro day.

I’m told neither number includes pros and exhibitors and ‘industry support” however, so the exact number of numb and yet enthused people wandering the halls of either Comic-Con has not been released. Given the number of lookie-loos who hang around in San Diego, that event would still seem to be the biggest.

Many people wondered how NYCC could be bigger than SDCC when the Javits Center is smaller than the San Diego Convention Center. I’m sure Torsten can give us the exact dimensions, but on most lists I’ve ever seen, the Javits is actually larger than SD Convetion Center. This stat is misleading however.

According to Wikipedia, the Javits has 840,000 sq ft of exhibition space and 1,800,000 sq ft of total space.

The San Diego Convention Center has a mere 615,700 sq ft of exhibition space but 2,600,000 sq ft of total space.

The Javits floor is obviously much smaller than THE TOTAL SPACE at SDCC where we spend so much time wandering around. The Javits total exhibit space includes the “Galleria” area on the fourth floor which was used this year as the press room, VIP area and media interview space. It’s a huge area the equal of Hall H that most people never even see. And of course, the SDCC was actually designed with a lot of people in mind, whereas the Javits is a dank rabbit warren of tunnels and low-ceilinged cattle pens. Okay not really, but it isn’t the best.

I did not feel that the Javits was dangerously crowded this year, mostly due to the genial disposition of the gentle mob. However some adjustments are going to be made, as I will reveal in my story for Publishers Weekly to be published tomorrow.

Now a few observations on the show from the meta standpoint. It was absolutely and without question The Year of the Woman. Not only were there numerous announcements of books with female talent, but a dozen panels on diversity and representation drew huge crowds, and the harassment policy was widely considered a success. I’ll have more to say about all this tomorrow, but a few links:

• The diversity panels were PACKED. All 12 of them.

At the #YesAllGeeks : Let's Talk About Harassment in Fandom panel discussion #NYCC14 pic.twitter.com/NTVYQ30tA5

— J. (@janiciaf) October 11, 2014

• Writer and commentator John Scalzi was pleased with the creation and display of NYCC’s harassment policy:

This is, pretty much, how an anti-harassment policy should be implemented.

And as a result, did the floor of the Javits Center become a politically correct dystopia upon which the blood of innocent The True (and Therefore Male) Geeks was spilled by legions of Social Justice Warriors, who hooted their feminist victory to the rafters? Well, no. The floor of the Javits Center looked pretty much like the floor of any really large media convention — people wandering about, looking at stuff, wearing and/or admiring costumes and generally having a bunch of geeky fun. Which is to say that as far as I could see the policy didn’t stop anyone from enjoying themselves; it simply gave them assurance that they could enjoy themselves, or get the problem dealt with if someone went out of their way to wreck their fun.

• James Whitbrook thinks that How New York Comic Con has shown us a wonderful future for Comics with the announcement of many female led projects:

The fact that these weren’t just throwaway announcements either, but some of the biggest news for DC and Marvel out of the Con, speaks to the importance for getting a wider variety and diversity of characters out into fans hands. The fact that they’re tentpole releases (Wonder Woman ’77 itself will head the vanguard for the latest batch of DC Digital releases, another welcome trend of Comic’s embrace of the digital age), accompanied by madly popular panels devoted to the women of comics and the industry itself from both DC and Marvel goes to show how they are slowly but surely getting better at nurturing their female fanbases as well. Lord knows they’ve both screwed up lately, but it’s nice to see positive news on this front for once.

• Laura Mandanas at Autostraddle has a positive review of the LGBT events at the con, although there could be more programming for this group.

• And a couple more including a representative overview by Jay Deitcher at Unleash the Fanboy:

• And not really to the point of this artuicle but I thought it was funny: Marvel even leads DC in preventing leaked footage.