At Last, Palm Beach To Get Its Own Convention Center

After more than 15 years of haggling among city officials, county officials and hotel and retail developers about plans to build a public convention center in Palm Beach County, the Palm Beach City Commission unanimously approved a plan Feb. 21 to build a 300,000-square-foot center just west of downtown West Palm Beach.

"I think we are finally talking champagne-cork-popping time," said Benny Baez, vice president of marketing for the Palm Beach County Convention & Visitors Bureau. "We are not quite ready to set a firm date for groundbreaking, but we've cleared the big hurdle that makes this possible, and we're talking about a two-and-a-half-year process to get the convention center open."

The complex, as spelled out in the plan approved by the city commission, calls for a convention hall with 100,000 square feet of exhibit space, a 25,000-square-foot ballroom, and 15,000 square feet of breakout rooms.

A 300-room hotel, linked by an enclosed walkway to the convention center, is set to be developed by Starwood Lodging, according to the plan. The convention center and hotel will be located adjacent to the 500,000-square-foot CityPlace retail and entertainment complex, set to open in 2001.

"CityPlace will be a really attractive complex built in an old European style of architecture, and the convention attendees literally will be able to walk right out the door of the convention center and be in the midst of all of it," Baez said.

Baez said a second phase of the convention center calls for 140,000 additional square feet of exhibit space, along with more breakout rooms and other facilities that would bring the building's total square footage to 500,000.

"We are hoping that the bookings will be so strong that by the time the workers finish the first phase of the convention center, they will just be able to stay on the site and start the second phase," Baez said.

Planner Gerard Cremin, owner of Tropical Temptations Special Events of Palm Beach, said he thinks there's a ready-made market for a convention center in Palm Beach County, even though the county has a number of popular meeting properties like the Boca Raton Resort & Club, with more than 200,000 square feet of meeting space; the PGA National Resort & Spa; The Breakers and the Four Seasons Palm Beach.

"We most definitely need a convention center," he said. "We've been having a lot of business literally flying right over our heads — bound for Miami or Fort Lauderdale."