BDC looks for allies on convention center project

The head of Baltimore’s economic development agency says lawmakers from across Maryland have been receptive to his pitch touting the statewide benefits of upgrading the city’s 40-year-old convention center.

Colin Tarbert, Baltimore Development Corp. president and CEO, said he met with 18 state lawmakers at the National Conference of State Legislators in Nashville earlier this month. Tarbert’s efforts to rally support for expanding or replacing the convention center comes as the building continues falling out of favor with event organizers.

“We’re losing a tremendous amount of business,” Tarbert said, comparing the convention center to the city’s outdated Royal Farms Arena. “We’re not capturing what we could be capturing.”

The convention center has hemorrhaged large events in recent years ranging from a gathering of Asian pop-culture enthusiasts, called Otakon, to the Natural Product Expo, the center’s second-largest event, which departs after this year.

The size of the convention center, he said, is the primary culprit for events bolting Charm City. Big conventions need 400,000 square feet of contiguous exhibit hall space, which the facility currently lacks, Tarbert said.

Any expansion “must provide” that level of adjoining space, according to a Maryland Stadium Authority study  released in 2016 investigating an expansion of the convention center. The study also found an upgraded facility needs to include up to 60,000 square feet of ballroom space and as much as 45,000 square feet of meeting space.

The report also suggested planning the site to accommodate a new 15,000-seat arena and 500-room hotel.

Critics of the city, however, contend investing in the convention center won’t produce the desired results until Baltimore reduces the violent crime that has plagued the city and accelerated after riots rocked Baltimore in 2015.

So far in 2019, according to police data updated on Wednesday, the city has suffered 207 homicides in 2019. Police have also recorded 1,969 street robberies and 462 commercial robberies.

Baltimore’s detractors argue crime in Baltimore, which President Donald Trump recently described in a tweet as a “dangerous & filthy place,” cost the city more convention business than an outdated space.

After a BDC board meeting on Thursday, Tarbert said crime is not the primary reason for the loss of conventions. The biggest obstacle, he said, remains a building that was completed in 1979, and last renovated in the 1990s.

Last year state legislators approved a bill allowing Maryland to pay its share of $50 million in planning and design costs for an expanded convention center. Tarbert doesn’t expect the General Assembly to take additional action on upgrading the convention center during the 2020 session.

Lawmakers passed a bill earlier this year greenlighting Maryland, which is responsible for roughly two-thirds the convention center’s operating costs, to cover its share of the planning and design costs for an upgraded facility.

What happens next, Tarbert said, comes down to elected officials of the perennially cash-strapped city locating money to pay for its portion of the design and planning costs.

“The city needs to identify (how it will pay) about one-third of the design cost to move forward,” Tarbert said.