Convention contention Denver vies for spot among nation's top meeting places: British author Martin Amis once wrote that among the great cities of England there is, after all, London. And after London, Amis asked, what is there? Manchester? Birmingham? Liverpool?

• Author: Lewis, David

Denver faces the same kind of question when it's asked if it can rank among the top convention cities in the nation. The $309 million expansion and opening of the new Colorado Convention Center invites that question. The municipal bond-funded expansion was sold to voters in 1999 as an attempt to put the city among the top 15 U.S. convention sites.

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But as Amis also wrote: It's different in America. There are so many great cities.

There's New York, for example, the Big Apple. Viva Las Vegas. New Orleans, the Big Easy, with its Bourbon Street. The so-called Cradle of Liberty: Philly, Baltimore and in more modern times, Washington D.C. And don't forget the Motor City. Or Chicago, a toddlin' town. And that beautiful city by the bay, San Francisco, where people leave their hearts. No convention-center bond issue can buy image-building like the fact that one website alone lists 25 songs about San Francisco, including more than a dozen with the city name in the song title.

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The national convention business has become one of the most competitive arenas in modern business history, not to mention one of the most difficult industries to forecast, but Denver remains determined to secure a spot among the top 15 U.S. convention cities.

The city's new convention-center expansion happened to open just as the first waves of a national debate about overbuilding in the convention industry were reaching the pages of national newspapers, a debate provoked by declining convention-industry numbers, both in Denver and nationwide, and a building boom among cities coveting and competing for a larger share of the nation's convention business.

Still, let us stipulate that the Mile High City is one of the great mid-sized urban centers in the United States. We imagined a great city, we built it and we're still building it. We also imagined a great big, newly expanded Colorado Convention Center, and we built that, too.

We built it, but will they come?

Denver is about to find out.

One definition of city convention rankings counts Las Vegas, Chicago and Orlando, Fla. in a top tier all by themselves. The second tier is a much larger league, including Boston, New Orleans, Atlanta, San Diego, San Francisco, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, perhaps New York and others.

Notice, however, that Denver is missing.

What's keeping it out?

"Boston and New Orleans have (national) shows, and when they did expansions recently it was to accommodate the growing convention and trade shows that are already there," said Michael Hart, editor-in-chief of Los Angeles-based Tradeshow Week. "I don't think that there are many shows at the Colorado Convention Center that were saying to the operators a few years ago, 'You have to get bigger or we're going to move to another city.'

"Denver's in a position now where it's trying to attract new business, which is always more difficult," Hart added. "Still, it doesn't mean it can't happen."

Can it happen? Denver has its skeptics and critics, but the Convention Center expansion is the beginning of a convergence of events that will provide some answers over the next decade. Construction of a publicly funded $286 million convention center hotel is already under way across from the Convention Center: 37 stories and 1,100 rooms scheduled to open in December.

Private developers plan a 50-story downtown condo complex combined with a five-star Four Seasons luxury hotel nearby. Another 12-story Hilton Garden Inn, also to be built across from the center, was announced in January. And, when it comes to drawing global attention, look for the upcoming opening of the new wing of the Denver Art Museum, designed by renowned architect Daniel Liebeskind, to make both national and international waves for Denver.

Yet one nationally prominent convention-center skeptic says Denver's success is possible--but the odds of it happening are long.

"It's easy for someone to say, 'We've got...