College Station City Council to consider adding convention center at future meeting
Published: Wed, 05/31/23
College Station City Council to consider adding convention center at future meeting
The College Station City Council agreed to consider adding a convention center in the future at the end of its meeting last Thursday.
Councilman Bob Yancy asked Mayor John Nichols and city manager Bryan Woods to consider the item, which he noted was discussed and added to the city’s strategic plan.
“A workshop item where we might, at a time of convenience, where we might discuss openly, hear from staff, as to the feasibility of it,” Yancy said. “What does a feasibility study look like? Is there such a process? But where we might have an open discussion, not just questions and Q&A, but open discussion where we can express our opinions and thoughts on the matter of a convention center.”
No objections were made by other council members. It is uncertain when the council will discuss adding a convention center.
“I think that’s a good one and we’ll put it in the queue at an appropriate time,” Nichols said in response to Yancy.
Building a city-owned convention center has been a council topic of discussion for almost 15 years.
In 2008, the city purchased land at the Chimney Hill shopping center on University Drive for $9.6 million in hopes it would one day be the site for a convention center. The council approved a finance plan for a $40 million-dollar convention center in March 2012, which was supposed to open by 2017.
The plan fell through in the following years, though, and the council asked city officials to look into selling the property. A sale of the land was completed in 2014 when the city sold it to the PM Realty Group, a Houston-based developer, for $7.5 million, $2.1 million less than it was purchased for six years earlier.
Former College Station Mayor Ben White supported the addition of a city-owned convention center, but he lost reelection in 2012 to Nancy Berry, current Brazos County commissioner who opposed the idea. Berry told The Eagle in November 2014, when the city sold the land, the private sector should be in charge of a convention center, not the city.
“Convention centers lose money everywhere, and some people think it brings people into town and it might,” Berry said in 2014. “But the Brazos County Expo Center, which I think is wildly successful, still loses millions for the county.”
Texas A&M University has opened two spaces for conventions and large gatherings since 2012. The Memorial Student Center reopened in April 2012 with the Bethancourt Ballroom — deemed the largest ballroom in the Brazos Valley — which can accommodate up to 1,700 guests with over 15,000 square feet of space. A&M’s Pitcock Hotel and Conference Center opened in August 2018 with a ballroom that can accommodate up to 660 people. The Hilton College Station & Conference Center is currently under renovation that will expand its meeting spaces to 28,000 square feet when completed.
Yet, discussion of a city-owned convention center has resurfaced in recent months.
Last October, College Station City Council candidates were asked about ideas that would bring tourism dollars to College Station, including the potential of a convention center in the city.
“While we don’t have a convention center right now, we do have the conference center on the Texas A&M campus and I think that is something we should do our best to work with Texas A&M to try to leverage and make use of,” said William Wright, who was elected to the council’s Place 2 in November.
Earlier this month, councilman Dennis Maloney mentioned the convention center after a presentation about the city’s tourism priorities.
“By God, it’s time we had a convention center,” Maloney said during the council’s May 15 meeting. “Everyone on this council is supportive of it. We need it. We’ve got space for it. We need the convention center.”