FIRST ARTICLE IN A SERIES OF TWO
By: Joe J. Wallace, Hadannah Business Solutions and assisted by CCO Staff
I like many others who have been following the saga of the Robert’s Stadium Ball Fields Project now known as “The Parkâ€, left last week’s meeting with many questions regarding the financial projections that were presented. In particular, my curiosity lies around the assumptions of just where the figure of 100,000 out of town visitors came from and just how many tournaments are needed to attract a crowd like that. The other question that has drawn my curiosity is in how it came to be that “The Park†needs a budget that is exactly equal to the credit limit of the Evansville Convention & Visitors Bureau. That curiosity led me to the offices of the ECVB where the City-County Observer had already filed for access to the minutes via the Freedom of Information Act.
I would like to thank the staff members of the ECVB for their hospitality and cooperation. My associate and I were treated as though we may be bringing the next big convention to town. We were provided a conference room to work in, water, and quick access to the documents that we had requested. At the end of the day we asked for copies of a number of documents and were provided them for a nominal fee. These people are very good hosts.
What the Minutes Contained:
The Park or Destination Evansville as it was then was first alluded to in 2004 but started being referenced in the minutes of the Board of Directors in March of 2009. Former Executive Director, Marilee Fowler conducted all Board of Directors meetings according to Sunshine Laws and invited members of the local media to all meetings. Many meetings were attended by multiple members of the media so the allegations that this project was done behind closed doors are simply not true. The local media was there and could have easily reported on the activities that were taken pertaining to this proposal. The Park only seems like a secret because the local media outlets chose not to report on it.
Through October of 2010, a total of $1.6 Million has been authorized to be spent on The Park and $765,000 has been either spent or committed. Most of that spending has been on addressing the environmental concerns regarding Wesselman Park and on adding details to the concept. The Tourism Capital Development Fund for 2011 is budgeted to be $1,511,633 derived from adding 2.5% to the projected 2010 funds. That is the $1.5M that David Dunn was referencing at last week’s meeting as being available to service the bonds that are proposed to be sold to finance the construction of The Park. It was interesting to note that all previous budgeting had been done using three year trailing averages but that for 2011 the method was converted to a projection of growth from a projection of revenue.
One of the questions that I had was just how solid was the $1.5M annual revenue figure. Having reviewed the minutes I would call that figure a best case scenario that is subject to contraction due to the economy and due to the loss of TCD funds because the Executive Inn is mothballed. So just how much will the Executive Inn issue reduce that funding? We learned through examining the “Lost Business Report†that 9,985 room nights have been lost in the nine months the Executive Inn closed because conventions chose to go elsewhere. This finding substantiates and quantifies the public claim of Candidate for County Commissioner Marsha Abell’s that The Centre has suffered financially due to the premature closure of the Executive Inn. Mrs. Abell’s opponent Troy Tornatta disputed that claim in a recent debate.
The direct impact to the TCD funds during that period based on a $70 rate is $24,463 which annualizes to $32,617. Those same lost conventions also lead to a loss of operating revenue for the ECVB of $41,937, and lost sales tax revenue of $64,235 from room rental losses alone. That total is $139,789 of losses in tax just from the loss of room nights. As conventions have multipliers for food, recreation, and entertainment, it is probable that the losses in taxes collected due to the “Executive Inn Debacle†will be between $300,000 and $500,000 for 2010 alone. That does not include lost rent revenue by The Centre. When one starts to connect the dots, the true costs of letting the Executive Inn swing in the breeze with no project manager really comes into focus.
A preference to put The Park at the Robert’s Stadium site was first recorded in July of 2009. It is referenced later that a number of other sites were considered. To the credit of the Board of Directors, it was acknowledged in that same meeting by Joe Vezzoso that “some conventions will probably never come back to Evansville if we can only deliver 250 rooms adjacent to The Centreâ€.
The Board meetings of 2010 started out with very few references to The Park. In the March 29, 2010 meeting the attendance jumped to 37 from previous meetings that drew less than 20 attendees. The attendance was most likely due to the public departure of Executive Director Marilee Fowler and the interest in any forthcoming details regarding her decision to seek her fortune elsewhere.
A statement was entered into the minutes that specified that the 7 board members were not paid and that 2 are appointed by the Vanderburgh County Council, 2 by the Evansville City Council, and 3 are appointed by the Mayor of Evansville. It is of interest that every member of the Board of Directors of the Evansville Convention & Visitors Bureau is a political appointee.
Future Opportunities Lost:
In the March 29, 2010 meeting, a list of the projects that have received money from the TDC funds was recorded. There are 16 such projects that have received a total of $8,785,969.45 including the African American Museum, the Evansville Museum, the Goebel Soccer Complex, and the LST. What dawned on me was that I knew some details about many of the recipient projects and know that the TDC funds were not paying for the full project but were being leveraged to make bigger projects happen. The Evansville Museum project is leveraged by more than 10 to 1. At that rate the $8.7M may well have been instrumental in cementing between $50M and $100M worth of projects to go forward in Evansville. It seems to us that this money has been leveraged effectively and reflects good stewardship and good public policy.
If the decision to max the ECVB’s credit card to a level of $18M to build The Park is made, the opportunity to leverage other projects will be off of the table for the foreseeable future. Many of the 16 projects that have received these TDC funds would never have happened if the ECVB had bonded the cash stream from the innkeeper’s tax several years ago to build baseball fields.
Defining The Park:
The Board meetings of April, June, and July have been dominated by efforts to further the design and definition of The Park. This effort has been led by David Dunn and the media has been buzzing around each meeting. In April, Mr. Dunn revealed that The Park’s preferred location next to Wesselman Park was contingent upon the destruction of Robert’s Stadium being part of the project. It is not recorded as to who or why that was made a contingency but it does seem like this contingency was imposed for the sole purpose of saving the City of Evansville the $1.25M expense of tearing down Robert’s Stadium and to assure that the demolition occurs as fast as possible. The possibility of having an 8-Plex of ball fields and keeping Robert’s Stadium is not mentioned anywhere. The aerial photographs and renderings suggest the possibility that The Park could have included both the 8 ball fields and a well maintained Robert’s Stadium at a lower cost. It was in the April meeting that the 8-Plex was approved, that it was authorized to begin discussion with the City of Evansville Parks Department, and that the Destination Evansville Committee was unanimously granted the authority to develop The Park at a cost not to exceed $18 Million. In every public meeting and every Board of Director’s meeting since then it seems as though Mr. Dunn is focused to carry on with his mandate.
All in all, I would have to conclude that the ECVB has been open and focused from day one. The fact that local media chose not to report this news does not make this group guilty of any back room deals. The staff was pleasant and we believe that prospective conventioneers will be in good hands at the Evansville Convention and Visitors Bureau. Downtown Evansville will be represented very well by this crew as soon as a Convention Hotel is in place for them to market.
Footnote: My analysis of exactly how other places attract visitors and how much they pay for sports complexes will be published tomorrow.
