Components: Large Convention Center
Project Value: $750 million Phase V Expansion

SAG team members began their relationship with the convention center in 1997 helping them prepare a 30-year strategic plan. The effort resulted in the development of the $750 million Phase V expansion of the convention center. The center is the second largest in the country offering nearly 3 million square feet of function space. SAG has maintained on ongoing relationship with the center assisting them with a number of projects including project management for Phase V, exhibitor service order internet strategy, enterprise-wide technology infrastructure plan, security services solutions, headquarter hotel study, senior management retreat facilitation, Convention and Visitors Bureau 3-year strategic plan, and convention district master planning.

Components: Convention Center
Project Value: $125 million

SAG prepared a feasibility study for expansion of the Washington Convention Center. Our scope of services included a review of convention center bookings, survey of the target market, client focus groups, competitive assessment, and a room by room occupancy analysis. It was determined that the Center had adequate exhibit space but that there were many periods when the exhibit space could not be booked due to lack of available ballroom and meeting space. It was recommended that the Center reconfigure a portion of the public spaces into meeting spaces, and that the concurrent planning of the adjacent headquarter hotel (which SAG was leading) take into account the need for more meeting and ballroom space.

Components: Convention Center

SAG completed a feasibility study for expansion of Detroit's COBO Conference & Exhibition Center and for a 1,200-room convention headquarter hotel. The market analysis revealed that there was not market support for convention center expansion or development of a new hotel. Nevertheless, a number of recommendations were made involving Center operational policies and improvements that needed to be made to the destination.

From an operational perspective, a key recommendation was to create a booking policy that favored events that generate overnight stays. No such policy was in place and room night generating events were often unable to book the center due to bookings by low room night generating events and events having longer than normal set-up periods. From the destination perspective, recommendations were made to create economic development policies that fostered the redevelopment of a number of abandoned historic hotels to provide lodging facilities to convention delegates.

SAG was also engaged to complete a benchmarking analysis of the COBO Center with comparable/competitive facilities throughout the country. Categories benchmarked included available function square feet, annual attendance, annual room nights generated by the facility, budgetary spending, and estimated economic impact. The analysis revealed the COBO Center was underperforming the majority of its peer facilities.

Components: Convention Center
Project Value: $180 million Convention Center; $170 million Westin Hotel

SAG team members began their relationship with the Charlotte Convention Center in 1991 with preparing a feasibility study for a new convention center. The study was comprehensive, analyzing Charlotte's community attributes, historical convention center operations, meeting planner preferences, and Charlotte's regional and national competition. The study also analyzed financial performance, CVB funding and project funding requirements. The recommendation was to build approximately 280,000 square feet of exhibit space, with related ballroom, meeting room and pre-function spaces. The convention center opened in 1995.

Our relationship continued and has included tax projections and bond offering due diligence related to the convention center financing, an economic impact study, a Convention and Visitors Bureau Strategic Plan, a downtown development plan (Destination Charlotte), management of the headquarter hotel process (700-room Westin opened in 2003), and preparation of a feasibility study for a second 500-room convention hotel.

Components: Convention & Conference Center
Project Value: $300 million

SAG managed the renovation and expansion study of the San Jose Convention Center, representing the facility manager, convention and visitors bureau, and hotel community. The existing center offers 142,00 square feet of exhibit space and 50,000 square feet of ballroom and meeting space.

SAG began its role by researching the market and creating a customer-focused renovation and expansion program. Services continued with formulating a development strategy, analyzing master plan site issues, developing a conceptual design, estimating development costs, developing an organizational and management plan, and preparing a funding and financing plan. Following the creation of the strategies, SAG continued its management role, representing the client group in project design, development and financing. Following a failed voter referendum (by 2%) to fund the project, SAG created an alternative financing strategy that combined a unique Mello-Roos District with downtown redevelopment area tax increment financing.

Components: Convention Center
Project Value: $150 million

SAG team members prepared a feasibility study, hotel tax projections and bond offering due diligence for the expansion of the Baltimore Convention Center. The expansion was funded by the State of Maryland and the City of Baltimore. The City's obligation was funded through a municipal bond offering supported by the City's hotel tax.

The scope of services included market and financial due diligence procedures to provide the City and bond buyers the information needed to make investment decisions. The expansion was to be funded by an increase in the City's hotel tax. The hotel community believed that growth in the lodging market would provide funding for the expansion and that the tax rate did not need increased. A unique "blinker" feature was incorporated into the bond offering whereby the tax rate could be adjusted each year depending on the lodging market performance. This made the hotel community comfortable that the hotel rate would remain as low as possible.

Components: Convention Center
Project Value: $140 million

SAG prepared a feasibility study for the development of a convention center and hotel in Colorado Springs, CO. The scope of SAG's work included a review of past studies, primary market research, surveys of meeting planners, analyzing comparable destinations, utilization projections, operating cash flow projections and finance plan development and analysis. While the study found that there was demand for a convention center and headquarter hotel, it was concluded that constraints to utilization relative to peer facilities included weaknesses in the downtown convention-related infrastructure, including the number of hotel rooms, restaurants and shopping venues near the new convention center site.

Components: Arena, Exhibit Hall, Auditorium, Meeting Space
Project Value: $115 million

SAG prepared a business plan for a renovated/expanded Asheville Civic Center. The development of the plan included analyzing the existing facility's event calendar, interviewing promoters and meeting planners, and analyzing comparable and competitive facilities. It was recommended the exhibit space be renovated and expanded, the existing theater be converted into a state-of-the-art ballroom, a new 2,400-seat performing arts theater be developed, and the existing arena be renovated to include permanent ice, improved site lines, new locker rooms and new luxury suites. In addition, SAG worked closely with facility staff to evaluate staffing, rental rates, operating policies, marketing, etc. that were used in projecting future budget requirements and positioning the renovated facility in the market.

Components: Convention Center
Project Value: $75 million

Strategic Advisory Group professionals were engaged to complete a comprehensive market and financial feasibility study for a new convention center in the New Jersey resort community of Wildwood, a favorite summer vacation spot in the Northeast. Of key concern to community leaders was the capacity for the convention center to strengthen the meeting and tourism business in the shoulder and off seasons. The study recommended a convention center with 80,000 square feet of exhibit space and 25,000+ square feet of ballroom and breakout meeting space. The project opened in 2002 with 73,160 square feet of exhibit space and 22,000 square feet of meeting space. Facility management indicates that the convention center has spurred economic development beyond their expectations both locally and in the region.

Components: Convention Center Governance & Management

SAG helped the City of Columbia create the governance and management structure for the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center. From a governance perspective, the analysis addressed the relationship with other organizations (convention bureau, arena, performing arts center, etc.), governmental oversight structure (city, county, authority, etc.), board powers, linkages with private stakeholders and funding. Management issues addressed included public versus private management, operating policies and procedures. The analysis also addressed the potential for sharing resources such as physical infrastructure, staff, marketing and other resources with other organizations such as the convention bureau.