The Racket Moves Into Springfield

Ah, gentle reader. If you’ve been here a while, you know I spit frown upon the convention center arms race racket, where “consultants” come up with projections about how, if only municipalities spent millions of dollars now (and every few years from now), a Periclean golden age would befall their cities. Or, at least, consultants would be paid and municipal managers/elected officials could fail upwards.

Seriously. search the blog and see how I feel.

Welp, it’s that time again New Springfield convention and event center could be ‘community icon’ after study released

Which includes this made up number:

The President and CEO of Visit Springfield shared the findings of the Hunden report with members of the council. It showed Springfield is losing out on more than $125,114 a day by not having an event center with at least 125,000 square feet of space.

Another made-up number:

The study said that over 30 years, it is projected to generate $1.3 billion and a tax revenue of $68.7 million.

Because those of us not in the industry who are over ten years old know that should this thing be built for $175 million dollars, it will require updates and expansion every decade or so “to keep it competitive.”

I’m not sure whether the city ever coughed up the $40 million dollars that the consultants wanted for the existing expo center twelve years ago.

But I do know that $175 million is a hell of a lot to spend for a cavernous empty building that will be underused.

I mean, I have been to some conventions and conferences recently, and the buildings are very pretty, but the conferences and conventions I’ve gone to do not fill them up. Maybe if those cities spent $200 million. As their consultants will surely recommend.