Alaska Convention Center performance: expanding venue opportunities build economic engines.

• Author: Bradner, Mike
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: Conventions & Corporate Travel

Convention centers cost a lot to build and they cost a lot, over time, to maintain. Their advocates usually sell these projects to their communities based on the visitors they will attract and new economic activity, particularly in the soft fall and spring "shoulder" seasons and winter when summer tourists are long gone.

But there's always a risk that these facilities will underperform and turn out to be big money-losers that local taxpayers will have to maintain.

Facilities for Venues

There can be mixed feelings over convention centers, too, because they can change the pattern of life in their communities. For example, when Anchorage built the William A. Egan Civic and Convention Center in the early 1980s, its first convention facility, it displaced the city's long-established Loussac Library from its downtown location, which caused angst among library supporters. Loussac was relocated to a new, larger building on 36th Avenue with more parking space, so this story had a happy outcome.

It was the desire for new business that drove Anchorage's push for a convention center because the city was limited in the size of conventions and meetings it could attract. The Egan Center was a success, however, and it was quickly outgrown. In just a few years plans were being laid for an even larger facility, what was to become the Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center.

Dena'ina seemed to be a really big risk when it was being promoted. At the time it was hard to imagine that Anchorage could really attract enough large conventions to justify its $106 million cost. There were worries about cost overruns (a reasonable concern) and worry that the Dena'ina and the Egan Center, which was being retained, would compete against each other for the pool of potential business meetings. The concern was that both would become big financial drains.

That hasn't happened, though. Dena'ina did cost a lot, but it was completed on time and on budget. It has also performed better than expected, both in the meetings it has attracted and financially. Other Alaska communities have built large facilities as well, though not on a scale of Dena'ina, and have had successful experiences. Juneau built its Centennial Flail Convention Center in 1982, and Fairbanks built the Carlson Center in 1990.

Expanded Conventions and Meetings

That these facilities can become economic engines is being shown in the numbers. The Dena'ina and Egan together host about 700 events a year. Those events attracted an average of 331,000 people annually over the last three years and over 350,000 people in 2015.

Julie Saupe, president and CEO of Visit Anchorage, says the city's meetings overall, including events held in large hotels like the Sheraton Anchorage Hotel & Spa, Hotel Captain Cook, and Anchorage Marriott Downtown, brought $104.8 million in new spending to the city in 2012; $86.2 million in 2013; and $91 million in 2014.

Fairbanks has had a similar experience, according data provided by Helen Renfrew, conventions director for Explore Fairbanks. The number of business meetings has remained stable between 2011 and...