Does Salt Lake need a convention center hotel?

If Salt Lake were to develop a convention center hotel property in downtown, would it bring in more business? According to some interested observers, the answer is a resounding "yes."

Local civic leaders began to wrestle with the idea last week, and the matter has received serious consideration after Utah billionaire Earl Holding offered to donate a site near his Grand America and Little America hotels for a new convention center. That proposal is in addition to the standing proposition of constructing a new, mega-hotel near the Salt Palace.

The Salt Palace underwent a massive overhaul in the early 1990s, resulting in a facility that now houses more than 675,000 square feet of convention and meeting space. Despite the major remodel, the building still lacks the proximity and ease of use to guest accommodations that many convention planners seek, Scott Beck, president and chief executive officer of the Salt Lake Convention & Visitors Bureau, told the Deseret News.

He said the fact that Salt Lake City does not have a large convention center hotel property has cost the city numerous conventions.

"Over the last five or six years, we've lost over 475,000 room nights because we don't have a convention center hotel," he said.

Beck said that when a large convention like the Outdoor Retailer trade shows comes to town, organizers have to contract with 34 hotels to get the needed number of rooms for their group. But in Denver — which has a large "headquarter hotel" — a same-sized group has to contract with only 15 hotels because the overall setup is more conducive to their needs.

"So if you're a meeting planner … those kinds of things make it more difficult," he said. "Our ability to fill the convention center is impeded by the lack of hotels in the convention district."

Among 11 cities competing for the same convention business as Salt Lake, only two others lack convention center hotels, Beck said.

Current proposals could present solutions to the problem facing the convention business in downtown Salt Lake, he said.

"We don't need a supplemental convention center … and expansion of the convention center in another location," Beck said.

The vice president of conference management for the 8,200-member Industrial Fabrics Association International, Todd Lindemann, told the Deseret News he agreed with Beck's assessment that because downtown does not have a large convention center hotel, it precludes Salt Lake City from attracting more convention business.

"There's no doubt about it. … Just build a hotel next to (the Salt Palace) and they will come," Lindemann said.

He described the Salt Palace as a "world-class" facility whose profile could be raised even higher with the addition of an adjacent headquarter hotel.