Albany Convention Center Seeks $54m Expansion, New Nuke Plant Could Compound State Costs

Every city has a downtown, but there’s one thing many have that Albany hasn’t got: an expanded convention center. That, as the Times Union reports, is something Albany County is planning to remedy, working on an agreement for an $54 million expansion of the Capital Center, which opened in 2017 at a cost of $78.5 million in state money.

Though Albany Capital Center director Monica Kurzejeski called this “taking the funding that is generated through tourism and hospitality and driving that back into the community,” that’s not how it’s worked out for most cities. Companies have long been cutting back on convention spending, a trend that accelerated after the pandemic and the rise of virtual meetings. That’s left a handful of cities like Orlando and Las Vegas increasingly dominating the industry — one 2023 report found that just 20 convention centers hosted 82 percent of the nation’s 250 largest annual events — and led to massively disappointing returns on expansion: After Philadelphia opened its expanded convention center in 2011, hotel stays by attendees actually fell by 26 percent.

In that light, spending public money to expand the Albany Capital Center would seem foolhardy enough. But the agreement between Albany County and the Albany Convention Center Authority would also commit the county to backstopping bonds if hotel taxes fall short; if taxes come in faster than expected, the added funds will be siphoned off to spend on more development around the convention center.

And if all these gifts that keep on giving don’t increase convention bookings? You can always expand the center again! Doing the same thing over and over and hoping for different results is the sign of ingenuity, pretty sure that’s what Einstein said.

And in other corporate giveaway news this week, from NY and beyond:

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