NEWS

Convention center faces 22-month makeover

Sheldon S. Shafer
@sheldonshafer
The arthitect's rendering shows the major exterior materials will be glass, metal panels and a combination of masonry brick and stone.  "It will no longer look like a concrete fortress,"  said Karen Williams, president and CEO of the Louisville Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Losing the Kentucky International Convention Center for a 22-month renovation and expansion may be a blow for downtown hotels and restaurants, but the $207 million project should pay big benefits for all business in the long run, say officials sponsoring the project.

In order to stay competitive for lucrative conventions and trade shows with Indianapolis, Nashville and other peer cities, the revamping "is something we have to do," said Karen Williams, president and CEO of the Louisville Convention & Visitors Bureau. "We will get business we have never been able to get before."

Consultants have predicted that the project, which features complete demolition and a total rebuilding of the old western half of the facility, might grow Louisville's hospitality business by 25 percent.

Karen Williams-Goetz is president and CEO of the Louisville Convention and Visitors Bureau. She's overseeing the convention center's expansion and renovation, which she says is much needed so to compete more with Nashville and Indianapolis.

But some downtown interests have nagging concerns related to the center's closure.

"Some of our members are concerned about losing that built-in customer base," said Stacy Roof, the Kentucky Restaurant Association's CEO.  "I think removing a whole block of downtown has got to have some impact, but I am not sure how big that will be."

"I'm sure it (the closure) will hurt downtown business, from an economic standpoint," said Jeff Stein, manager of Stewart's Pawn Shop, 113 E. Jefferson St.  "It surely will affect the hotels."

And Lisa Higgins, owner of Mint Julep Tours, said her business expects to have to "adjust our tours accordingly, providing a little extra time for closed streets.  But we are looking forward to the long-term benefits" of the improved convention facilities.

The project "is complicated and will cause some disruption," Williams acknowledged.

The cost, primarily due to inflation, of renovating and expanding the Center has climbed $27 million since an initial estimate three years ago.

The financing plan calls for the state to issue $56 million in bonds over 30 years, to be paid off from the general fund.  The convention bureau is to issue $151 million in bonds, due to be paid off over three decades from proceeds from the hotel room tax -- a tax paid largely by visitors.  The local room tax was raised a penny last year to help finance the KICC project.

The state-owned building at 221 S. Fourth, which is operated by the Kentucky State Fair Board, will be closed for nearly two years, starting Aug. 17.  An adjacent block of both Third and Fourth streets will be closed for an estimated 22 months,  compounding existing downtown traffic snarls.

►RELATED: Traffic snarls loom with convention center work

Short-term pain, long-term gain

The whole block bounded by Third, Fourth, Jefferson and Market streets will be leveled and rebuilt from the ground up -- one of the larger local demolition projects in recent times.

And, although hospitality officials are hard pressed to pinpoint how much business is being lost during the center's nearly two-year shutdown, they have scurried and been able to preserve much of the business that had previously been booked into Kentucky International through mid-2018.

The convention center renovation is just one of a long list of current positives that officials see in support of an impending economic boom for Louisville.

Life in the center city is currently is good.  To wit, nearly 2,000 new downtown hotel rooms and many hundreds of downtown apartments are in the pipeline. The Urban Bourbon Trail is flourishing.  Waterfront Park and the Big Four pedestrian bridge are thriving.  Local attractions, including Fourth Street Live! and the KFC Yum! Center, are seeing record crowds.

The Kentucky International Convention Center is a hub of activity, drawing around 250,000 attendees a year.

When the center closes, the blocks of both Third and Fourth streets between Jefferson and Market streets will be sealed off next to the center -- for the safety of the public and for workers, and to accommodate logistics, said Richard Polk Jr., the lead architect on the center project and a partner in the EOP design firm of Louisville and Lexington.

Officials said that the total closure of the center during the construction will save a bundle and probably reduce the construction timetable by around a year.

The western half of the convention center opened in 1977, and the eastern half was added in 2000.  During that expansion project, the center remained open, and there were significant problems and complaints from users related to noise, dust, and dirt, officials said.   "We had a lot of upset clients," said Linda Edwards, the KICC general manager.

The western half is disappearing because the structure has been deteriorating.  "The eastern half is in much better shape," said Polk.

►RELATED: Hotel building book rushes to fill local need

The nitty gritty of the plan

The plans call for expanding the second-level exhibit hall space from 146,000 to 204,000 square feet.  Most of the space will be unfettered, with only four columns in the hall.

The ballroom will be built on the street level at the west end, with 40,000 square feet -- or 10,000 square feet larger than the existing ballroom.  The new ballroom will have a modern kitchen attached.

Polk said a major challenge was how to enlarge the center's space, with the footprint locked in, curb to curb.   The solution: have the revamped facility feature cantilevers -- building the second level of the structure out over the sidewalks in the new western half.

"This is not a remodeling, it is a reinvention -- a renovation and an expansion," Richard Polk, architect with EOP architects, said of the Kentucky International Convention Center project.

The existing center's layout is confusing.  There are seven lobbies with six entrances.   The renovated center will have only two main entrances, with Fourth Street serving as the front door, Polk said.  The new main entrances at the Fourth Street corners will be canopied and feature revolving doors.

The major exterior materials will be glass, metal panels, and a combination of masonry brick and stone.  "It will no longer look like a concrete fortress.  It will be user-friendly, welcoming," Williams said.

The new center will have energy-efficient LED lighting, with the ability of lights to change colors and an intent to "change moods," Polk said.

"You will be able to look in at night and see the lights and the people," Williams said.

Big job, many contracts

The complicated project has required the hiring of no fewer than 20 consulting firms.   EOP is the lead architect  -- its major work has included the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet headquarters in Frankfort and the UK College of Pharmacy building in Lexington -- assisted by the design firm HOK.   The project construction manager is Hunt Construction Group of Indianapolis.

Polk said the project calls for the awarding of 43 separate construction bid packages.

Officials have set what Polk calls "pretty aggressive goals" to have a large percentage of the work awarded to firms headed by minorities and women, and to provide at least 60 percent of the workforce hours to Jefferson County workers.   But Polk said there is no commitment to hire union labor.

"This is not a remodeling, it is a reinvention -- a renovation and an expansion," Polk said.

During construction, the Louisville metro police substation in the building will remain open, but the Seattle's Best Coffee shop will close for good.

Two pedways into the center from the north and south near Fourth Street will disappear, but the pedway from the nearby Louisville Downtown Marriott on the eastern side will stay.  The two pedways are being removed largely for security purposes, Edwards said.  It will make it easier to control traffic in and out of the center and negate the need to keep the center guarded 24-7.

The nearly two-year closure, Williams said, "was not a knee-jerk decision.  It was made after great deliberation and consideration, but it is the only decision that allows for the expansion to take place as quickly and safely as possible, and with the current and future clients' satisfaction in mind."

The closure's impact

The staffs of the Convention Bureau and the Kentucky State Fair Board, which runs the convention center, have been meeting with key downtown hoteliers and traveling to meet with clients affected by the closure.

The users were given these options: Move activities to other downtown sites, including the KFC Yum! Center and the Galt House; have attendees stay at a downtown hotel and bus them to the Kentucky Exposition Center to conduct their business, or reschedule and move to another date, either before or after the downtown center's closure.

Seventeen clients had booked to use the convention center during those two years.

Of those 17, 10 groups -- most of them faith-based organizations -- have agreed to keep the meeting dates in Louisville and move activities to another venue.  The groups have a combined estimated local economic impact of nearly $60 million, Williams said.

Hospitality officials acknowledge that most of the groups were offered incentive packages, such as breaks on facility rentals and the price of hotel rooms.

Of the remaining seven groups that had booked the center during the planned closure, at least one is still weighing options but six others, officials said, have agreed to keep their meetings in Louisville and move them to a date after the center reopens.

Those six have a combined economic impact estimated at nearly $23 million and together will bring well over 30,000 attendees to town, said fair board spokeswoman Amanda Storment.

Among the six is the American Legion, which has agreed to move its Louisville meeting from 2017 to 2020, Williams said.

Some new business has also been booked, including a handful of organizations that likely wouldn't be coming to Louisville without the upgraded KICC.  Among those is Sweet Adelines International, which has contracted for 10 days in October 2020. The convention and related singing competitions will mean more than 10,000 hotel room nights and have a $7 million economic impact.

Sweet Adelines officers have called the planned upgraded convention center "stellar."

Another group to sign to use the improved convention center is the National Association for College Admission Counseling, which in 2019 will have an eight-day meeting at the center.  That event will draw about 6,000 people and have an economic impact of $6 million, officials said.

In addition, the American Association of School Librarians has signed up for a 2019 meeting at KICC.   That event will generate about 6,500 room nights and pour an estimated $3.1 million into the economy, with most of the revenue going to hotels, restaurants and attractions, Williams said.

To keep heads in hotel beds during the KICC's closure, the convention recruiters haven't missed a beat.  During that time, the city has booked 191 conventions, trade shows and meetings into the fairgrounds and other venues.   Williams said this business translates into 293,000 hotel room nights and will bring to town 543,000 attendees.  And the bookings will have an economic impact of $130 million.

"Yes, the building is closing, but it will be business as usual during those two years," Williams said.

She said a good portion of the bureau's sales force is focused on recruiting business for the revamped center after 2018.

"It will be full when it reopens," she said.

Closing convention center 2 years going to hurt

Competition, lost money

The upgrade of KICC is critical to keep the city on an even keel with nearby cities.  Nashville, Cincinnati and Indianapolis have renovated facilities since Louisville has.  Charleston, W.Va., and Columbus, Ohio, plan to complete major convention facility renovations in 2017.

In all, local hospitality officials said that at least two dozen cities have announced plans to expand, or to build new, downtown convention facilities and that, to keep pace, Louisville has to redo its center — or face losing business.

Consultants advised that the renovated and enlarged Kentucky International should potentially increase business by up to 25 percent — or an additional $10 million a year, for a total of more than $50 million in annual economic impact to the downtown area.

Convention officials speculate that Louisville missed out on maybe 20 conventions and perhaps 67,000 hotel room nights in fiscal 2015 — an economic impact of $57 million — because downtown convention facilities were lacking.

The consultants hired by the Kentucky State Fair Board concluded that the existing convention center's problems, in addition to a complicated layout, included poor signs, a small registration area, and outdated facilities, including elevators.

Reporter Sheldon S. Shafer can be reached at (502) 582-7089, or via email at sshafer@courier-journal.com.