When the City of Greenville held a public information gathering session the week of Aug. 15 to get input and feedback from residents about the proposed $78 million downtown conference center, the primary concern from residents was clear: parking, parking, parking.
But that’s not the major concern of stakeholders like local hotel owners, VisitGreenvilleSC and others looking to attract business travelers.
As it stands, the project will consist of 184,000-square feet of mixed-use space, including a 25,000-square-foot grand ballroom, a 10,000-square-foot junior ballroom, 8,000 square feet of meeting space; support space and two museums.
But representatives of LMN Architects, the group behind the design, said during an Aug. 23 city council workshop that a grand ballroom consisting of only 25,000 square feet of contiguous space is barely large enough to attract the sort of business the city desires.
“Everybody is concerned about making sure we don’t build it too small,” said Brian Tennyson of LMN. “The biggest factor [of meeting planners] is, ‘Can I fit all my exhibitors, general session and everything in your largest space?’ You could have a million square feet of meeting space, but if they can’t fit their main function in your one largest contiguous space, they’re not even considering it.”
“So that’s the first order of magnitude,” he added.
Representatives of LMN noted that, as the main ballroom space grows larger, there are incremental gains in market capture for business travelers.
Market capture based on size of contiguous meeting space
- 14,400 square feet of ballroom (size of Hyatt): 41%
- 25,000 square feet (size of current planned conference center ballroom): 67%
- 40,000 square feet: 85%
- 60,000 square feet: 96%
Source: CSL Event Planner Survey
But creating that extra space would be tricky.
Council members discussed the possibility of combining the junior ballroom and the grand ballroom on one level, allowing for 35,000-to-38,000 square feet of space, although doing so would create a more narrow space. Other options include expanding the size of the building itself, though that would add to the cost. Museum space could also be used, but council members would have to come to an agreement with the museum’s stakeholders, including Furman University and the County.
But council members did express broad support for the idea of expanding the ballroom space.
“What I keep hearing from the community is we have to get that group travel,” said Councilwoman Dorothy Dowe. “COVID has taken a huge hit on group travel. We have a vision of convention coming here, professionals coming here and loving our city, spending money in our city during the week, hopefully then moving to our city. The size has got to be right to attract that, otherwise all of this is for naught.”
LMN will present recommendations at the next city council meeting set for Sept. 6.
