Tribune-Star - More than 6,500 people have visited the downtown Terre Haute Convention Center from its opening in April through the end of August.
While July was a slow month, which is typical for convention centers, August was “a good month,” said Tennille Wanner, OVG 360’s general manager of the Terre Haute Convention Center. OVG 360 is contracted to manage the facility for the Vigo County Capital Improvement Board.
“We did a lot of events in August, which is really great,” she said, as the convention center staged 17 events.
Some events include two job fairs, an annual meeting for the Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce that attracted 340 people and a Comedy for a Cause event to raise funds to build tiny homes for homeless veterans. The Terre Haute Realtors Association sold tickets for that event, which gave a lesson to the convention center on how to manage a larger than expected attendance.
“We didn’t do the ticket sales or the registration, but we accommodated that [event] as best we could. We own 800 banquet chairs and we had 796 chairs in the room and had more folks out in the pre-function area, so it was a very successful event and obviously an event the community grabbed a hold of,” Wanner said.
The center’s “sweet spot” is attracting events with 300 to 400 people, Wanner said.
That allows the main ballrooms to be divided, part for a general session and part for meals, with other rooms available for breakout areas.
Through August, the convention center has hosted 63 events. Attendance was about 2,000 in August and the convention center has attracted more than 6,500 people since opening in April.
“I think it is good for a facility of this size. We are a smaller convention center,” she said. The center also is new and getting started while COVID-19 is still around, and the economy has been turbulent.
“If you look at a 3-hour [driving] radius around the convention center, we hit nine pretty good-sized cities, so that is a really realistic drive frame,” Wanner said. However, the economy remains a concern as the industry may not be back to its full capacity until 2023, Wanner said.
“Prices for everything are going up, as is the amount of people are getting reimbursed for mileage and hotel rooms are up,” Wanner said. “What I think we will start seeing is that employers will be less likely to send folks to conventions right now while it is getting more costly for them to do that.
“I sure hope that isn’t the case, but I think that will affect our (convention center) industry moving forward,” Wanner said
Wanner said the convention center has business slated for 2023, but just a handful of events so far for 2024.
“What I am seeing is that folks are not really going to far outside of 12 months” for booking events, Wanner said. “That is fine for now, but what we want the larger pieces of business that books outside of 12 months. We are really looking for the pieces of business that are true multi-day conferences/conventions,” she said.
“They will usually book outside of 12 months as they have to get their line up ready so when they have a conference they are announcing where their next conference is” to be held, Wanner said.
One good aspect for Terre Haute is the convention center is getting “a lot of day meetings, which is really great. It keeps our staff going and is filling the smaller meeting rooms which is what we are looking for and we are getting a lot of weekend and weekday banquets,” Wanner said.
“I think since opening the gates, we have had a good amount of business that we have booked and hosted so far. What our sales team is also doing is reaching out to state associations, Midwest associations, ‘societies of,’ as those are the folks who travel around to different facilities and maybe go to a different city every year,” she said.
“We want to get into those (meeting) rotations. There are also associations for government, such as the association of mayors or association of counties,” Wanner said. “They typically travel all through Indiana and usually are not be in the same place two years or three years in a row, so we want to be in that one every-three-year or one every-five-year rotation,” she said.
Some of those association conventions “are too big for us, so it takes us working with (Indiana State University’s) Hulman Center to try to overflow some of that business,” Wanner said during a time frame that will work for both the convention center and the university.
As an example, Wanner said the convention center, while bidding on a convention for a trade show with more than 100 booths, had a group tour the convention center and Hulman Center. The group also looked at The Verve for a hospitality room.
“I think overall they were impressed with what downtown Terre Haute has to offer. We talked about museums and the space at the Ohio Building and at the (Terre Haute Historical Museum). We have so many great places that are all walkable that they realistically do an event here,” Wanner said.
Such partnerships are important to attract visitors to the city, she said.
“Another piece of that is the hotel nights. Right now we have a little over 200 walkable hotel rooms. For us to be really successful in getting that overnight business, we need more walkable hotel rooms or some type of shuttle system in the future,” Wanner said.
“I think the new casino will play a big part in that. They will have rooms and I would think they would have some transportation to get folks to and from, which would be a big draw for groups coming” for a convention, Wanner said.
Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett, who is a member of the Vigo County Capital Improvement Board, said additional hotel rooms downtown has been part of the convention center project.
Getting hotel rooms will require a private/public partnership, the mayor said. The Wabash River Regional Development Authority has designed $4.3 million of $20 million it received in state READI (Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative) grants to help create a new downtown hotel complex.
The grant would help construct a building housing Courtyard Inn and Residence Inn hotels and a parking garage. That project would be built on the site of the former administration office building of the Vigo County School Corporation at the intersection of 7th Street and Wabash Avenue in downtown Terre Haute.
“The garage will be our portion of the project in order for [Dora Hotel Co. and Terre Haute businessman Greg Gibson] to invest” in the hotel project, Bennett said.
A new hotel project would cost more than $50 million plus a new parking garage, costing $8 million to $14 million.
“We have to get them to make the commitment for the hotels, which I am hoping will be coming this year,” Bennett said. “I would suspect that if we could get construction started no later than the spring of 2024, I would be very happy,” the mayor said.
“I just think it will take a little time to put the financing in place for them and the design, and for us to get the parking garage design done and financed, it will probably take a good year to get that done,” the mayor said.
“It will be driven by the private investment. If they can accelerate that schedule, then we can accelerate ours, but realistically, to start to move formally, complete design and financing, it could start late next year, which would be great, but my guess is probably spring of 2024,” Bennett said.
The mayor said the hotel project would require an agreement for a new parking garage to be built.
“My guess (a new parking garage) will end up in the CIB’s ownership. The Redevelopment Department may have to construct it first, as that is who owns the property,” Bennett said. “We will be donating some of that property for the hotels. There is still some legal work to do and lay all that out. It (the garage) will end up probably being operated by the CIB for sure as they are already operating the current parking garage for the convention center.”
The hotel project would add more than 200 additional hotel rooms to the downtown, the mayor said. Add in the current 200 rooms, and it would mean more than 400 rooms within walking distance of the convention center, the mayor said.
“We thought we were going to have a third hotel at the state office building, but it was not financially feasible. It is better to build new than it is to remodel an old building like that,” the mayor said. “What Tim Dora moved ahead with was the concept of two hotels side by side, which then meets the market demand need for this size of a convention center.”
Terre Haute businessman Greg Gibson said the project remains in the planning stage.
“There are many factors to consider regarding the timing and viability of the hotel project downtown, including the economy itself,” Gibson said of the proposed hotel project.
“Both material and labor costs have increased and supply of both can be a struggle. However, we do understand that to take advantage of the READI funds, we must use them by December of 2026. Obviously, we will be seriously evaluating market conditions and timing.
“Of course, we have always known that additional hotel space would be needed to maximize the success of the convention center, and it is still a priority,” Gibson said. However, he added, “I really can’t guarantee anything at this point, other than my interest in the project and developing downtown Terre Haute.”
