Pine Bluff Advertising & Promotion Commission officials aired concerns Monday about the feasibility of additional renovations to the city’s 45-year-old Convention Center and improvements of the attached hotel, which first opened 33 years ago, to the center’s director.
Joseph McCorvey, the director, said representatives with the P3 Group, the project developer, plan to address the Pine Bluff City Council on Monday about possible funding options for upgrades to both facilities. McCorvey presented estimated figures for renovating the Plaza Hotel and constructing a new hotel to replace it from a project meeting hosted over Zoom last month, but he said it would take about $4 million to further renovate a Convention Center that was a regular venue for big-name musical acts, plays and sporting events during the latter part of the 20th century.
“My concern is that these projects being planned are reliant totally on public funds,” Advertising & Promotion Commissioner William Moss said. “If Marriott or Hilton or a private investment group wants to come in and say, ‘We will spend $14 million of our private money to tear down this hotel and build a new one,’ I would be cheering them on.” Moss said he was skeptical of P3 Group’s projections for a redesigned or renovated hotel that could possibly draw more events to the Convention Center.
According to the analysis, new construction of an 85,000-square-foot hotel with 125 rooms would cost $170.49 per square foot for a construction cost of about $14,491,650, including demolition of the present-day Plaza Hotel, which first opened in 1988 as Wilson World. Renovation of the 175,000-square-foot existing building, with 199 units, costs $139.44 per square foot for a construction cost of about $24,402,384.
A subcommittee of Convention Center officials formed months ago selected Beechwood Management Co. as a potential operator for the hotel upon improvements being made, McCorvey said.
“It was decided first of all, they wanted to renovate the existing hotel property because people have nostalgia with it or remember how it was back in the day, but it was an off-brand,” McCorvey said. “It was not a major brand. But the thing is, if they were to get a flag from Hilton or Marriott, they have certain standards and layouts and all of that.” Under the Wilson World umbrella, the hotel was known for its indoor pool inside a giant atrium, but McCorvey said that is not a popular design today.
“Imagine walking into a building at 2 in the morning, and you’re smelling all that chlorine, or you walk in there in the afternoon, and a beach ball hits you in the head because the kids are in the pool playing. This is not practical,” he said. “Hilton and Marriott will not put their flag on a hotel that’s dilapidated.” The hotel has changed management hands in the past 33 years and suffered with dilapidations including the walls caving in and mold growth in recent years.
McCorvey said he is banking on rolling out improvements to the Convention Center and hotel at the same time in hopes of luring more events and visitors.
“It doesn’t make sense to just have a brand new hotel and not do something with this Convention Center,” McCorvey said. “We need to do it in tandem, simultaneously. A lot of this stuff is not difficult to do. We’ve just got to have contractors do it. It’d be nice to roll it out together if possible.” The Convention Center, which opened in 1976, has undergone upgrades in the past three years, but more is needed, according to its director.
“We painted the whole arena. We put $300,000 worth of technological equipment to have games in that arena, which seats 7,600 people. To just ignore it would be foolish,” McCorvey said. “There is a King Cotton Holiday Classic we restarted. There is purpose for that arena, but we’ve got to fix it up.” The center’s auditorium, which McCorvey says still has 1970s technology, needs upgrading.
“If we upgrade it, then we are able to attract some of these plays and kinds of things like that and put events in our facility, but it’s got 1970s technology in there. It’s crazy,” McCorvey said.
To reach $7.6 million in gross revenues at an average daily rate of $108, it would take a 41% occupancy rate and cost $6.2 million in operations to net $1.4 million in operating income, according to the analysis. A new 125-unit hotel could yield $7.6 million in gross revenues and cost $5.8 million in operations to net $1.8 million.
“I am skeptical of their projection for that,” Moss said. “You’ve got a 65% occupancy rate and that a weekly event — 52 weeks a year — to fill up that hotel can be accomplished.” According to a pie graph A&P Director Sheri Storie provided, Convention Center revenue for 2020 totaled $109,705. A&P provided $1,031,047 to the facility, and revenue over expenses totaled $7,019.
Storie, a former Convention Center staff member, said she agrees with the cost analysis, adding new construction makes sense. She pointed out, however, the challenge Convention Center officials would face in bringing in enough clients on a consistent basis to make the facility and adjoining hotel profitable.
“In looking at future events, my biggest concern is the number of events it’s going to take the Convention Center to host, with overnight guest rooms, to make that hotel successful,” Storie said. “ Another concern of mine is the age of the Convention Center. Pine Bluff is always going to be a challenge to sell until we turn the corner on the reputation of the city, but if you’re bringing in a meeting planner and you’re showing them possible hotels — whether it’s the Convention Center hotel, Holiday Inn or Hampton Inn … and then you bring them to the Convention Center, because it’s an aging facility — and then you have other options like Little Rock, Texarkana, Hot Springs, all of that, you have to wonder how can we get them to overlook the condition of the Convention Center to bring their meeting here when they have so many other choices.
“I’m not saying it can’t be done. We’ve brought in business. We brought in a Convention Center. That was many years ago, when Pine Bluff was a different city. The Convention Center was newer 20 years ago.”