City loses big convention
by Bill Johnson, Special to the Daily Record
Wash your car, it will rain. Build a megameeting hotel in downtown Jacksonville, and watch the megameetings beat a path out of town.
Such seems to be how the downtown's four major hotels see their situation. No sooner does the Adam's Mark open its doors with nearly 1,000 rooms and 110,000 square feet of meeting and exhibition space, than the city has to prepare for what's destined to be one of its quietest and likely least-profitable Julys.
The Watchtower Society of the Jehovah's Witnesses will be setting up shop in Tampa this summer instead of Jacksonville and it is taking its thousands of visiting members and their money with it. Combine that with the loss of March's Cheerleaders of America event and you've got an epic case of bad timing.
The Watchtower loss doesn't just affect one hotel or a few restaurants. This group basically took over downtown Jacksonville during its conventions, which typically spanned two weekends.
"That's a huge piece of business we lost," said John Remmers, general manager of the Omni Hotel. Add to that the general malaise of the economy and its dampening affect on business travel and "you can kind of see our struggles."
Remmers said approximately 700 visitors stayed in his hotel during the event, and he estimates the total number of Watchtower followers visiting the city at about 4,000 to 5,000.
Bob Downey of SMG, the management group the city hired to run the Coliseum, said it is unfortunate the hotels are losing income without the event. But, he said, his group and the city went as far as possible to keep the convention in Jacksonville.
"When we got into it they were paying way below what the prevailing rates were for all the other religious groups and other groups that come to use the facilities in Jacksonville," Downey said.
In addition to the low price, the Watchtower wanted a bare-bones deal, he said: no concessions, no parking deal, no emergency personnel and no custodial service. This caused problems with traffic - because no police were provided - as well as cleaning supply costs and possible culpability on the city's part, since no emergency services were provided for on a city property.
When SMG proposed certain adjustments to the deal to make it more in line with what other groups were paying, Downey said Watchtower officials bypassed his company and went straight to city officials to seek relief.
"In addition," he said, "the entire cost of the rental for the facilities was being given back to them [Watchtower] through a grant from the city's Tourist Development Council." And that amount, basically, wasn't even enough to pay for the utilities during the event, Downey added.
Since the negotiations, he said, several other cities bargaining with Watchtower have called Jacksonville to ask,
"'How do you guys deal with this?'"
"We believed we were being more than fair with them," Downey said. In fact, the Watchtower did have an opportunity for more cost relief from the TDC, but it never made the application for it, he said.