Convention expansion requires ‘heads on beds’

You can expand it, but meeting planners, already fed up with the high costs and hassles of shuttling conventioneers to the BCEC, probably won’t come. The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority originally expected that 4,000 moderately priced hotel rooms would be built nearby; there are just 1,700. Other major cities average about 8,000 hotel rooms within convention center walking distance. The room shortage is not the Convention Center Authority’s fault; rather, it reflects financing and other problems that have chilled hotel industry growth, especially in this high-cost city (that’s why many of the city’s new hotels charge $300 or $400 a night, which deters most conventioneers).

The Convention Center Authority recognizes the issue. An advisory panel that last month recommended expansion called for “definitive plans [to be] in place to increase the hotel supply proximate to the BCEC.’’ But such plans will likely involve public subsidies. “Absent some form of government intervention, I don’t see a hotel being built in the South Boston waterfront for at least the next 10 years,’’ said James Rooney, executive director of the Convention Center Authority. A 1,200-room headquarters hotel next to the BCEC could require $200 million in subsidies. Even that would leave BCEC way down in the room count, meaning more requests for more subsidies for more hotels. Rooney hopes an expanded BCEC with a headquarters hotel will spur private hotel development, but that same expectation 15 years ago did not pan out.