MOSCONE WEST OPENS IN SAN FRANCISCO
San Francisco expanded its famed underground Moscone Convention Center in the early 1990s, effectively doubling its size in a constrained urban environment by tunneling under an arterial street and creating a Moscone "North" on an adjacent block. The industry wisdom at the time held that there could never be a further expansion of the convention center in San Francisco due to the massive redevelopment of the surrounding blocks in the Yerba Buena Redevelopment Area, and the industry required contiguous exhibit space. Economics Research Associates was hired to test that industry wisdom and confirm whether or not the "City that Knows How" could now rest with terminal size of its primary convention facility.
ERA analyzed the market support for further expansion and led a multidiscipline team in the investigation of alternative sites for additional convention facilities. It was easily confirmed that no further opportunities existed for contiguous expansion of the exhibit halls. This meant that San Francisco would not be competitive in attracting the very largest exhibit-heavy trade shows in North America as they continued to grow into the future.
But ERA identified a completely alternative strategy for the convention industry in San Francisco: simultaneous use. ERA advised the City that they could not rest, but should indeed start planning for another expansion in order to provide more capacity in the smaller show range which would allow the City to capture additional convention business; continue to feed hotel, restaurants and other visitor-serving businesses; and do so on a more continuous basis than the "boom and bust" cycle that accompanies reliance on serving just the largest shows. ERA then conducted financial feasibility analyses, and projected community wide economic impacts to advance the planning and entitlements for this project. ERA's work was instrumental in winning voter approval for the taxing authority to finance the new building.
The result is open today. Moscone West is a beautiful Gensler-designed facility of 770,000 gross square feet, including 300,000 square feet of net rentable space on three floors. The construction budget was $186 million, and is being financed by bonds backed by a hotel tax increase.
Praise has been immediate. Quotes include:
* Adam Schaffer, publisher of Tradeshow Week, speaking on the simultaneous use concept first identified by ERA in the 1990s:
"This lets (the city) have greater frequency of show." "They can have a 300,000-square-foot show going on in one building and be loading another 300,000-square-foot show in another. It gives them more bandwidth."
* John Marks, President of the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau, at the first luncheon hosted in the building:
"The convention business is the one segment of our market that is working. Business travel is significantly off because corporate America has chosen to create value through cost containment. Leisure travel is slowly improving domestically; international travel is still (stagnant). But conventions are very healthy."
Last year, Moscone shows generated 727,389 room nights for the city. This year, they're on pace to do 922,525 room nights, he said. For 2004, conventions already account for 831,000 definite room nights and another 112, 000 in the tentative category.
"With the addition of Moscone West, in the next couple of years we should approach 1 million room nights a year generated as a result of our convention facilities," Marks said. 'That's huge."
The first big chance for Moscone West to strut its stuff will come in early August, when many of the 20,000 members of Meeting Professionals International, a critical group of industry insiders, descend for their annual conference.
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