Hotel boom leaves convention planners wanting

There are six hotels and one convention center under construction or in the works that soon will drop another 600 guest rooms on the Springfield market. But meeting planners say that’s still not enough to attract some large events that are taking their business elsewhere.

The hotel flags Home2 Suites by Hilton, Holiday Inn Express, the Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott and SpringHill Suites are at various stages of development on the north side, while Vib by Best Western will serve East Sunshine Street and Moxy will repurpose a downtown building into a boutique property.

Only one of the six properties has a dedicated convention center.

The Fairfield, just north of the DoubleTree by Hilton on land once occupied by the aging Budget Inn, is aiming for a fall opening, followed by a parking garage to the west and convention center attached to the DoubleTree. Both hotels are owned by O’Reilly Hospitality Management, and the properties will work together to secure convention groups, said Dee King, sales director for both hotels.

Currently, the DoubleTree has a ballroom that can hold 250 people and 201 guest rooms, King said.

“What we’ve found is, we’re just too small for a lot of the groups that want to come here,” she said.

The additional convention space, which will replace the DoubleTree’s western parking lot next to Aldi, will hold 500 people and bring the total convention space to 20,000 square feet, she said. That would still be less than the nearby Oasis Convention Center at 30,000 square feet of convention space, according to its website.

“We knew that was going to make us a little short on guest rooms,” King added. “So in comes the Fairfield.”

O’Reilly Hospitality’s strategy, she said, wasn’t to go after large convention business because that could displace DoubleTree’s bread-and-butter individual business travelers. She said the ideal groups are state associations and corporate gatherings that need between 50 and 250 guest rooms. The Fairfield is built with 103 guest rooms and access to the parking garage, convention space and restaurants at the DoubleTree.

Unmet expectations
New additions, like the Fairfield, are signs the hospitality industry is fairing well, but it is not the large convention center members of the Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau have long said the city needs.

“That’s great that they’re adding that facility,” said Susan Wade, public relations manager for the CVB. “Our vision is to have a convention center and hotel next to the [Springfield] Expo Center here downtown. It would create a convention complex, where we have the Expo Center for exhibition space and then a convention center for sessions and breakout rooms and then the hotel connected to all of that – to put it all under one roof.”

If that sounds familiar, it’s because the issue dates back 10 years when Springfield hotelier John Q. Hammons and Branson developer Rick Huffman contended for a development connected to the Expo Center but neither proposal gained traction. The 1.7-acre parcel still sits vacant today.

The University Plaza Hotel & Convention Center across the street from the Expo Center has been identified as too small to house attendees of larger conventions. It has about 270 rooms.

“We’re losing some business to other cities because the convention space not being big enough,” Wade said. “If it’s blazing hot, or it’s snowing or it’s raining and they need to go to the Expo Center, it’s inconvenient for the delegates to do that. And groups are choosing other cities where things are connected, where you don’t have to deal with the elements to go from one facility to the other.”

Springfield recently missed out on the Missouri Municipal League’s annual meeting because of facility shortages.

“They used to meet in St. Louis, Kansas City and Springfield,” said Tracy Kimberlin, the CVB’s president and CEO. “They took Springfield off their rotation and now meet in Branson instead.

“Most meeting planners for larger conventions are looking for somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 and 700 rooms near the convention complex.”

Even if the Expo Center and University Plaza were connected, Kimberlin said there are still problems.

“The Expo Center, No. 1, is not a convention center; it’s an exhibit hall, which is one element of the convention complex,” he said. “It does not have the ballroom space and the breakout meeting space. It’s not connected to a hotel. There’s not enough hotel rooms within walking distance.

“Other cities have better mousetraps. Branson is the perfect example.”

The Branson Convention Center, which is attached to a 294-room Hilton, also has an attached parking garage and nearby entertainment, Kimberlin said. The center advertises 114,000 square feet of event space on its website. North of Springfield, comparatively, is Osage Beach’s lakefront Tan-Tar-A Resort, which lists 700 guest rooms and 90,000 square feet of event space on its website.

Room growth over occupancy
Earl Steinert, president of EAS Investment Enterprises Inc. which is building Home2 Suites with an expected September opening, said Springfield can’t handle the number of rooms it will have after current projects are complete, yet alone a larger convention complex.

“Well, Branson’s is about to go broke,” Steinert said. “I don’t think it’s feasible. I don’t think one would pay for itself in Springfield – or Hammons would have built one long ago.”

In March, Springfield Business Journal reported the city-owned Branson Convention Center posted net losses each year since opening in August 2007. Last year’s net loss was reported to the Branson Board of Aldermen at nearly $400,000, but a 2011 study found the center’s annual economic impact was roughly $16 million. In that sense, city officials consider the convention center a loss leader.

When Steinert planned his newest hotel he didn’t know all the other projects would pop up around the same time.

According to CVB data, Springfield had 5,657 guest rooms last year. The 601 rooms being added to the mix would represent more than 10 percent growth, which Wade acknowledged probably won’t be matched by an equal growth in occupancy. The most recent citywide occupancy rate was 69.2 percent in March, up from 62.8 percent in the same month a year ago.

“It’ll work out fine,” Steinert  said. “But it’ll take two or three years to build the market back up.”


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