Petersburg: The Place to Be

The Times-Dispatch recently reported on the city's efforts to acquire a downtown convention center and hotel. The paper's editorial page subsequently observed that that "Petersburg seeks to be the place to be:" a regional hub and destination.

The editorial drew the attention of city leaders to Steven Malanga's article Convention Wisdom in the winter 2012 edition of City Journal, in which he analyzes the benefits of convention centers as "generators of civic renewal." They note that, according to Malanga, "convention business generally has fallen. Conventions attracted about 86 million participants in 2010, a decline from 126 million 10 years before. Convention space has grown considerably during the same period. . . .And the moral is: If convention centers are not necessarily doomed, then communities need to be aware of the risks."

After pointing the lack of return for tax-payer investment in convention centers for large cities like Boston and Baltimore, Malanga describes a secondary benefit ascribed to them: "Convention and meeting centers shouldn’t be judged, they now say, by how much business they bring to local hotels, restaurants, and local attractions. Instead, we should see them as helping to establish a tourism brand for their cities." Petersburg might argue that the small convention center proposed meets a different need compared to those in large metropolitan areas that seek to fill empty hotel rooms. Downtown Petersburg currently has no hotel rooms to fill without this or another such project.