Dallas’ convention center redevelopment project has been mired in concerns of delays and relocating conventions, but the person whose name marks the building said Wednesday that patience will be needed as the $3 billion project advances.
For a project of this scale, there will be changes and delays, former U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said.
“I just hope everyone will realize how much this is going to do for our city and how much it’s going to do for our job creation, and just be patient,” she said.
City officials, led by Rosa Fleming, the director of the convention center and event services, as well as developer Jack Matthews, whose team is building the mammoth building, briefed the City Council on Wednesday on the project’s progress since last year.
Political Points
Several council members, surrounded by poster boards with designs and schematics of the new convention center and green water cups with the FIFA World Cup’s branding on it, said the entertainment district could spur development downtown. Some asked questions about the project’s changing design, and the city’s financial commitment. Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Gay Donnell Willis asked for details about sources of money such as naming rights that is expected to cover $600 million, or 20%, of the project’s funding.
Council member Chad West asked about how traffic would flow around the convention center. The city has eight different proposals, and some of them could cut off easy access for amenities and residents in North Oak Cliff. The design for the thoroughfares such as Hotel Street and the Jefferson Viaduct, which have bike lanes and pedestrian connections have not yet been finalized.
That fact was a surprise to West. “I’ve got my house design done, but I haven’t done my drainage design that’s underneath it,” he said. “I don’t know how you can have one done when you don’t have the other part.”
Tom Reisenbichler, part of architecture firm Perkins&Will that’s designing and engineering the building, said more details are often fleshed out in the design development phase that they’ve only recently begun.
Others asked about getting regular updates from the city. The revised plans call for adding meeting rooms and retail space and could come in slightly below earlier cost estimates. The building will be 15% larger in floor area than the current structure, and its height was lowered by 16 feet, per the latest designs.
Some council members zeroed in on the convention center’s funding. Most of the money will come from bonds. The city can take on $2.2 billion in additional debt, and it will use money collected from a project financing zone and a 2% increase in the city’s portion of the hotel occupancy tax collections.
“The projected budget (of the project) is really sort of speculative money,” council member Bill Roth said. The city’s ability to budget for the convention center is dependent on the funds they think they will collect through hotel occupancy taxes and the project financing zone. If what they’ve projected over 30 years pays dividends, then the city could potentially be able to pay back its debt faster.
The city is also trying to get funding from other sources, such as a grant from the North Central Texas Council of Governments, proceeds from the sale of assets, naming rights, an energy efficiency contract, parking revenue, and cost share with the Department of Aviation because the center will have a heliport. City officials said they were closer to briefing the City Council about a potential naming rights deal, but several of these funding sources were not finalized.
Fleming said the ceiling for the project currently stands at $3.5 billion in response to a question by council member Paula Blackmon.
Council member Cara Mendelsohn, however, said the financial planning for the project was still unclear, and it didn’t appear that anything had changed since last year when the city was briefed.
She questioned if all the components of the convention center project such as the deck park over I-30 were accounted for in the money the city says it can put together to pay for the project.
When it came to parking spots, for instance, convention center officials said they’ll have 1900 parking spots the day the convention center opens, but they plan to grow the spaces to 4000 in a phased-in approach. Mendelsohn questioned if all spots projected to be used in the future were included in the financial plan.
“I’m very confused to continue hearing “well, we’re going to develop this later,” Mendelsohn said. “At this point, we’re multiple years down the road. Why don’t we have a plan for all of this?”
Fleming said the city will begin briefing council members and share more information to alleviate concerns.
The briefing comes as Dallas prepares the downtown convention center to serve as a global broadcast hub for this summer’s FIFA Men’s World Cup. The council approved $15 million in upgrades in December 2024, and the work to construct the International Broadcasting Center that will host hundreds of journalists and media outlets from around the world is underway.
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