Good morning and welcome to the December 10th, 2025 Economic Development and the Arts Subcommittee.

I will call the meeting to order at 1003 and turn to our city attorney, David Benton, to discuss public comment.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

For citizen comment, members of the public may address the subcommittee for up to three minutes on issues of interest or concern to them.

The open meeting law permits subcommittee members to listen to the comments or prohibits members from discussing or acting on matters presented.

Madam Chair, in the event there's any sign-ups for agenda items, members may speak up to two minutes on agenda items.

Comments must be related to the agenda item and the action being considered.

Council and staff cannot discuss or comment on matters being related to planning investigations, claims of litigations.

Additionally, if any member in the public who appears before the subcommittee in their capacity as a lobbyist, must disclose that fact to the subcommittee.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you so much, sir.

And now I'd like to um introduce our interpreter, Elsie Dorte, and allow her an opportunity to introduce herself.

Thank you, uh Madam Chair O'Brien.

My name is El C Duarte, and I will be providing Spanish interpretation during today's economic development and arts subcommittee session.

I will now take a moment to address our Spanish speaking audience.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, I'll see.

Our next item on our agenda is called to the public, and we have one virtual speaker, Jenny Ann Sumner.

Do we have Jenny Ann?

Okay, Jennianne, the floor is yours.

Madam Chair, members of the subcommittee, I just want to express my appreciation for your consideration last month on an update to the refurbishing of the public art and the old cross-cut canal park from McDowell to Thomas Road.

I look forward to the future update.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Jenny Ann, for your testimony.

Item one on our agenda is approval of minutes from the November twelfth, 2025 subcommittee meeting.

Do you have a motion for approval?

Move to approve.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Um any nays.

Hearing none, the motion passes unanimously.

Item number two on our agenda is the convention mark and we try that again.

Thank you for the opportunity to come and give you an update on the convention center activity.

And we also want to spend a little bit of time talking about the convention market in general.

Joining me to my left is Ron Price, President and CEO of Visit Phoenix, who is a partner of ours in selling this destination.

Really good partner, and uh you'll throughout this presentation you'll hear about some of the fruits of their labor as we move forward.

So this morning, what I'd like to talk about is a little bit about visitor spending to give you an idea of the overall impact of the convention center on the market uh since the expansion was complete.

I'll also spend a little bit of time talking about this past summer, which was a historic summer for us as far as activity is concerned at the convention center.

Then I'll also spend a little bit of time talking about some upcoming events, some notable events that we'll have at the convention center.

And then we'll spend some time talking about the competitive destinations, our comp set, to give you an idea of what is happening in the market in general, and then we'll have some time at the end for some questions.

So when talking about the overall impact of the Phoenix Convention Center since the expansion, it's important to talk about the attendance, the number of people that have walked through our doors.

Just to give you some brief background on the history, the convention center expanded with the final phase of the expansion being complete in 2009, and that resulted in a tripling of the convention center's space.

At that same time, the downtown Sheraton Hotel opened, giving us a significant uh boost as far as our status in the market.

And uh in 2009, that was the first year since the completion of expansion through 2023.

You can see on the slide in front of you the amount of attendance that would have taken place at the convention center had we not expanded.

And let me explain that.

Uh for the the expansion, that it was funded by the state and the city.

They both participated by contributing half of the money needed for the expansion.

And to justify the state's investment in the convention center annually, there's a requirement from a state statute, I believe it's ARS 9-626 that requires a feasible, a feasibility study to be completed to understand the economic impact for that year of the convention center.

It's basically to give a return on investment to the state.

Um, and in that study, which is completed by HVS, uh, they look at the they looked at the number of attendees that attended the convention center in the final years before the expansion, so 2003 through 2005, to get an average of the attendance, and this is back when we called the civic plaza, so before the convention expansion.

And then what that does is that gives you a baseline to determine what we refer to as the no-build scenario.

So, what would have taken place as far as action at the convention center had we not expanded.

And that's what you see in front of you.

So, over since 2009 through the last completed year of this study, which was 2023, it was about 411,000 attendees that uh would have walked through the convention center had it not expanded.

So, again, that's what we call the no-build scenario.

So, to show you the impact of the expansion, this gives you the actual numbers as far as the number of people that attended events at the convention center over that same period of time.

Um, and again, that's a significant improvement, and we're looking at 3.2 million people compared to the 411,000 that would have been had we not expanded.

So, again, this is the build scenario.

Now, the reason we're talking about the number of attendees is because that is how we're able to determine the true economic impact of the activity at the convention center.

And the way that we do that is each attendee is assigned a number which is based on the spend that they have when they arrive into the destination.

And that includes money that's spent on hotels, food and beverage, entertainment, transportation while they're in the destination, and that number is 1,428 dollars.

So when you apply that to each of the individuals that walked through those doors, that gives you the economic impact.

So, going back to the no-build scenario, um, again with the 411,000 attendees, uh, that would have would have resulted in 587 million dollars of economic impact over that period of time.

Now, to show you again the economic impact that the expansion uh resulted in, over roughly that same period of time, we're looking at 5.2 billion dollars of economic impact.

Significant, and I really think it speaks to the uh true impact of the expansion and really shows the the value of the investment that both the city and the state made into the expansion of the convention center.

Uh one thing I'd like to do to show you uh on the slide that you see in front of you is give a little bit of explanation into the peaks and valleys of the economic impact over that period of time.

If you look at uh years 2010 through 2014, uh that was the first dip, and that's reflective of the Great Recession.

Um, another thing that was called it was really a perfect storm.

So we had the Great Recession, um, we had what was referred to as the AIG effect.

The AIG effect uh was what was uh the name that was given to the impact that um happened on the industry from corporations that had received government bailouts during the recession and still held um uh conventions in what was deemed resort destinations, which uh Phoenix is considered a resort destination.

Uh there was a lot of public backlash when that happened.

So corporations began canceling some of those uh those meetings to avoid that type of scrutiny.

Um and then we also had the uh adverse impacts of SB 1070, which really painted the destination in a negative light nationally.

Um the re now with the Great Recession happening around 2008-2009, um, what you see here is the impact on the industry because uh just as a reminder, those large events that book conventions, they have a booking window of anywhere from three to five years.

So uh around that time that the AIG effect was happening and everything else that I just mentioned, we also had uh destinations or I'm sorry, we had corporations that either stopped booking or just stopped calling.

And we felt the effects of that in those subsequent years.

We recovered uh eventually, and then if you see in 2020, uh we had the impact of global pandemic.

Um the good news there is you can see in 2022 that we recovered rather quickly uh from the uh the effects of the pandemic and got us back into uh what we consider our sweet spot of of operation.

So this gives you uh uh an idea of the success of the convention center since the expansion and quantifies it in uh the number when it comes to economic impact.

Now I'd like to spend some time talking about this past summer.

There's a misnomer in the world that when it gets hot here in the summer, uh we don't have business at the convention center, and I'm here to say that that uh that is quite the opposite.

Um I'll point out four of the five groups that you see on this slide.

So we've got the the brothers of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Incorporated, we have Phoenix Fan Fusion, which is our version of Comic Con.

Um, we have volleyball festival, and then we have the Church of God in Christ.

Just those four events alone that took place in the summer accounted for 72,000 attendees at the convention center, which was significant.

It really kept our team busy.

Clean power also took place in May, and that was just in it by itself was another 10,000 people.

So it was a really busy summer, it was really successful, and we were uh quite excited.

Um, and again, this really speaks to uh the hard work that both our staff at the convention center and at Visit Phoenix has done to uh not only bring in events to this destination, but service those events when they're here and make sure that their events were successful.

Um as a result of that, I talked about the Church of God in Christ.

Uh, this was a summer event that took place.

Uh they had such a good time here and appreciated the attention that they got that they sought us out at a trade show in October just to let us know that one of the other groups underneath their umbrella um wants to bring their event to Phoenix strictly because of the experience that they had when they were here this past summer.

Now, upcoming events.

Um, I want to first talk about Urbana 25.

What's significant about that group is they're coming uh this December, so this month, and this is a group that's actually meeting here in Phoenix uh between Christmas and New Year's.

That is significant because the hotels uh traditionally have a really tough time putting heads in beds during that time, especially when it comes to group business.

So to have this group come here at that time is significant.

Um and then May of 2026, we've got uh we call it ICEF, which is Society for Science in the Public, and then also National Postal Forum.

Both between those two groups, we're looking at about 10,000 people.

Um 2020, or I'm sorry, 2030, uh in November, we're gonna welcome back the National League of Cities.

Uh, they were last here in 2011, so we're excited to have them come back.

And in more of the immediate future, we are 114 days away from uh the NCAA women's Final Four taking place here in downtown Phoenix.

It's gonna completely take over downtown uh that first weekend in April, and then um another mega event that's gonna be coming in February of 2027 is the NBA All-Star Game, another one that we're excited for.

Now, uh significant group that met for the first time uh here in Phoenix was Semicon West.

Uh this was a group that had been in San Francisco for multiple decades.

Uh, this was their first time meeting outside of San Francisco, and this is the premier microelectronics event uh in the world.

And uh the fact that they came here um and were successful um is really significant because you know I'm happy to say that we're gonna be welcoming them, welcoming them back in 2027, and our our long-term goal is to impress upon them that we make sense to be the new home of Semicon West.

But what I'd like to do is show you just a brief video to summarize their experience when they were here um this past October, so I really like how the video ends with the overhead shot of Canyon on Third.

Uh, that is an outdoor venue destination that we have at the convention center between our West and North buildings.

Um I've called that out specifically because it has really generated a lot of excitement about this destination.

Um and one of the things that we've learned from the uh CSNL study, which was completed that we presented on back in October of 22, was that it's a trend in the industry that meeting planners, when they go to destinations that have a favorable climate, is to find a way to do some events outside.

So with the 80,000 square feet that we have, branded Canyon on Third, um, it serves as a blank canvas for these meeting planners to really get creative with how they use that space.

And you can see Semicon West activated it by using uh by having an outdoor festival atmosphere and a party to celebrate that event, and it was very successful, and we're really excited to have them here.

Again, over 20,000 people attended that event, um, and they used uh hotels.

It was uh up about 30 hotels, including outside of the downtown perimeter, the downtown footprint.

Another thing that's significant is we had visitors from over 52 countries uh come to Semicon West.

And another thing I wanted to point out was um that's significant when I was speaking about Semicon West being excited about bringing their event here to Phoenix.

Again, this event had been in San Francisco for a very long time.

The last time that they were in San Francisco in 2024, uh they had 600 attendees from California attend that event.

When they were here in 2025, they had 5700 attendees from from Arizona attend their event.

So there was a lot of excitement um, not just from us in the industry, but from people in the semiconductor world that are relocating as we speak uh to this destination.

Uh so that was significant, and we were very excited for that to be the case.

I talked about the hotels, uh, and and will admit this is something that uh uh you know, in in some instances, um leaves us at a competitive disadvantage.

Uh, this was a very large group.

Uh they had to book um again almost 30 hotels, including outside of the downtown footprint.

Some of their hotels were 6.1 miles away from the convention center.

Um, while we were able to accommodate, and it was successful for this group, uh, for a lot of of um industries for a lot of corporate clients, uh, that is not something that's favorable for them because there's added expense with that.

Obviously, uh having to bust people into town for their events, um, and and they like the idea of keeping what we always call a compact footprint.

Um, so this was something that we did work through, uh, but it is something that we're keeping a close eyes on, you know, as we move forward.

Um so I'm gonna turn it over to Ron Price, and what he's gonna do is talk a little bit about the uh competitive destinations.

Thank you, Jerry, appreciate it, and Madam Chair and members of the subcommittee, thank you for being letting me be here today and talk a little bit about this.

And uh we're regarded as a top 10 convention destination in the US, as we are on the leisure side.

Uh but as the landscape continues to change, and I think Semicon is a great example of that.

We've become a destination that more and more of these large conventions are are wanting to be calling home.

So as we start looking around the country and look at our current assets we have here, it's it's incredible to see what other destinations are doing.

Uh what we've done here is pulled up a couple of comp cities that we compete with on the daily basis that's uh going after these these large conventions.

Uh Dallas uh is completing a 3.7 closer to $4 billion uh convention center expansion.

What's unique about Dallas is they have completely torn down their existing convention center and rebuilding it from scratch.

That's amazing.

You think of the, I would think uh Dallas is I think number five in the country, number four or five with as far as convention uh business.

So they're making a major commitment uh to rebuild for the future.

Um San Antonio uh just announced that uh they are also in the process of adding to their downtown.

You may have saw they're bringing their NBA team back to downtown, building an arena there, they're expanding their convention center there, 1.5 billion dollar expansion.

Austin is taking the lead of what Dallas has done, tearing down their convention center completely, um, reformatting it so they can actually grow the size of business that goes into Austin.

And uh Houston is uh continues to expand uh their their uh footprint in downtown Houston 2 billion dollar convention center expansion.

Um on the hills of this, they're also adding Ron, we have a question from Councilwoman Stark.

Yeah, um, I find it interesting about Houston.

I actually was in Houston about eight years ago for uh ULI event.

I was a judge for some of the development in the Houston area, and they had just completed the convention expansion eight years ago, and already they've done another one.

They're doing another one.

And so with that, and this is where it gets competitive.

When you start looking at the landscape of cities that go after these large conventions, um, it is imperative for them as they start adding more hotels and more meeting space.

Uh you you'll see there's only a handful of cities in the US that can really hold these type of conventions, right?

And so Houston is one of those, especially with the oil and gas uh business they have there, you'll see uh uh several others.

But even with this one here, they're now thinking about the next phase of it, which is another another, I think 15 to 25 year vision.

Uh I think it's highway 59 that's elevated uh right outside the convention center.

They're looking at lowering that and going below grade and creating kind of like what we have a deck park over that to even give them room for the next expansion.

So it's it is it's serious business.

And you look at the amount of revenue of the economic impact these conventions bring into a city, not just the economic impact, but the thought leaders and the companies that come in.

So they see this as a wonderful opportunity as we do to bring in those future companies to find out they love the place and then hopefully want to relocate their their um their their business there.

On the next slide, we we start looking into some of the other uh places around the U.S.

Obviously, Los Angeles has been a big conversation for many, many years uh with the Olympics coming in here very shortly, uh looking to finish their their uh expansion project.

Seattle is is very unique.

Uh Seattle is has been a fast growing competitor uh around the country, uh, and especially with the the announcement of their $2 billion expansion project, we'll definitely put them up there as a more competitive city.

Uh New Orleans um uh will continue to expand.

New Orleans has one of the largest convention centers in the US.

Uh and they are you can see they're getting up to three million square feet of meeting space.

Uh and then Denver completed their expansion in 2023, and they're already starting to talk about the next phase of their expansion now.

Las Vegas, I always smile when I talk about Las Vegas, is it's such an anomaly.

And I think you know, you can look at their convention center as one thing, but most of the hotels there, we would all call it that's a convention center within the hotel.

Uh, but with with the the growth uh opportunities with the different sporting venues that they're building, uh able to attract larger conventions and a lot more international conventions.

They're making another um uh investment into their convention center.

Orange County, this is actually out in Orlando.

Uh Orlando, as you all know, is is a top destination to host some of these domestic international conventions uh is also um expanding seven million square feet in Orlando.

So it puts it in par with with some of the other large cities out there that we talked about and uh uh that can host some of these larger ones.

And then Nashville uh they're they're put out there, Nashville is another one that has grown in popularity uh and also in the convention side.

They see this as a great opportunity to help uh flourish their economy uh as we do here uh in Phoenix, and we'll be adding 300 square feet of expansion here uh very soon.

Okay, thank you, Ron.

So wanted to talk a little bit about uh lost business.

So I mentioned earlier when we were talking about Semicon West and how they had to book outside of the downtown footprint when it came to their hotel needs.

Uh visit Phoenix works really hard to track all of the leads that we get for business, and they also track any business that was lost and why it was lost, and they specifically can find out and tally up the amount of business that was lost specifically because of the lack of hotel rooms in downtown.

And as you can see, uh we looked at a time frame from uh 2021 to 2025, and uh we're looking at 276 meetings and conventions that were deemed lost business strictly because of uh the lack of hotel rooms.

Um, so that's 977,000 um attendees that we could have had had uh the business not been turned lost, and you can see the impact of that as far as the lost potential revenue from that lost business.

This gives you an idea of of what I just explained, gives you a visual of that.

Um, and you can see in the years, I mentioned to 2025, but you can see looking at future years because keep in mind we book business um ahead of time or business three to five years um in advance, and uh we actually do have some business that's booked in 2020 or 2035.

That's the farthest out that we've got right now, but you can see that we've even got business that's been deemed lost uh in 2034, and um and as you can see in the graphic, uh everything that is uh finish your sentence and then I have a question.

Everything that is uh to the right of 2026, um it's going to go up as we start to work with uh with more groups.

Um I want to talk a little bit about the previous slide with the lost business and and hotels and convention centers.

I know that one of the complaints I heard, it was the only, I shouldn't say one of it was the only complaint I heard from folks from semi-conwest who are incredibly happy to be here and had a great time, but was that their hotels?

Some of them their hotels were too far away.

And I know that in some other destinations, um we have they have connected hotels, right?

Phoenix, we do we have that here?

We we we don't have a hotel that's connected to the convention center.

No.

And is that does that contribute ever to lost business?

Well, we we know that that's something that would be attractive to meeting planners.

Uh meeting planners spend a lot of time developing the curriculum for their attendees, and what they want to do is make sure that it's as easy as possible for their attendees to get to the destination.

And any time that you've got a hotel that's physically attached to the convention center, that allows for that ease of operation.

Uh Houston, for example, is one of those destinations that has a hotel physically attached to their convention center.

And what's interesting about Houston is uh it's very similar.

Their downtown is very similar to ours.

Uh you know, their convention center is in close proximity to two sports venues, just like we are.

Um, and uh, you know, and they have outdoor space.

They have an area just in front of their convention center that they activate just as we do for Canyon on Third.

Um, another city that uh that I know it's not in our competitive set, but Columbus, for example, has a number of hotels that are physically connected to their convention center.

Um, as you might recall, uh, when we presented the findings from the CSNL uh study uh about the convention market here in Phoenix, you know, of the three recommendations, one of which was to explore the idea of an entertainment district, another was to uh bring in additional hotel rooms into downtown, another one is to look at expanding the convention center in the next six to ten years.

Uh when we went through that exercise to come up with a conceptual master plan that was presented to city council, part of that master plan did show an 800 to 1200 room hotel physically connected to what could be a new South building.

And can you just remind me in that study it approximately how many more hotel rooms do we need to help attract some of this business that we're losing?

Is it that 800 to 1200 or do we need more on top of that?

And uh their recommendation was based off of uh demand from the development community as well as the market demand.

But you know, if you speak to um my team at the convention center and especially Ron's team at this visit Phoenix, they would say that we do need more than that.

Yeah, and I if you go back and look at CSNL, I mean we I believe the city initiated that study in 19.

We updated it here recently.

Things have changed.

I mean, Semicon is a great example that our popularity has continued to grow, so demand for these larger conventions has continued to grow.

So our team would tell you we could use a lot more than 1200 rooms.

Um and I think that's where we'll continue to see the growth.

Even as we start, you know, talking about the next major event that we'll host here, that's a big criteria because these other cities are looking at uh have that tighter footprint of walkability from their hotel to the actual venues, and so uh that is something the CSNL study uh talks about.

They run it in different halos or rings away from the convention center.

That's where we're lacking in downtown.

And the good news right now for what we have, we're running at an optimal level.

In fact, uh we we get in this situation where I think we have one of the highest occupancies of a community center in the country, which makes it very hard for us to add more um meetings in there.

So as we think about the expansion of the convention center, the expansion of adding more hotel rooms is going to be vitally important.

Okay, and I think um councilman Robinson also has questions to this point.

Okay, thank you, madam chair.

Actually, first is a comment.

I I think you guys know I was in um Taiwan recently, and the fact that there is now that direct flight from Taipei to Phoenix.

The um we were meeting with the C suite folks from China Airlines, and they talked specifically about 2027 and coming back for um semicon.

So that was a real real big deal to them.

And you answered one of my questions with regard to the lost business um slide, Jerry.

But Ron, I think this question is for you.

When we look at competitive destinations on slide 13, and don't necessarily have to go to it, I'm looking at the amount of square feet that has been added to some of these um convention centers.

And I think I know the answer, but I don't know why is there such a discrepancy between LA and New Orleans?

You know, New Orleans added three times as the the square feet at um, you know, an LA's price is three times the price.

I'm sure it's because it was LA.

Yeah, but is there something we need to be putting into these convention centers as we move ahead?

Or you know, is that the difference we're seeing in the price tags?

Yeah, Councilman Robinson, that's a great great question.

And we get this question a lot when we put these slides up and people point out whether investing this much and getting this much square feet.

A lot of it is when you look at what New Orleans is building, um, they're building more of expo space, which is less expensive than finished out uh ballroom space, multiple levels.

And so that's where you start to see some of those uh discrepancies play in.

So it's the type of space that they're they're actually adding on to uh their their facility versus like I said earlier, if you're building a brand new convention center, multiple floors, elevators, all those things versus an empty box.

Okay, that's perfect.

And I'm sure absolutely to your point, uh LA may be a little bit more expensive to build in thanks.

You know, the last comment I'll make is interesting about the type of business that we're missing out on.

And Jerry, you hit it on a hit on it on that loss last slide with lost business.

I was at a conference with my wife not too long ago.

It was an AMA conference, American Medical Association, and they were plotting out where they were going for their future businesses, and they want to come to Phoenix.

It's really interesting because they do theirs in their latter part of the year, it's the weather, they hate going back to Boston and places like that.

And the comment was openly made that there just wasn't enough space in you know, in and around the convention center to house their attendees, which clearly is our um our issue.

So let me ask this next question.

I know there's a lot of work being done looking for looking for a partner, and if you can say, are we getting close to having another partner in a big hotel that's um you know that would help us in this endeavor?

I know the convention center is one part of it.

I'd like to see the hotel on top the convention center personally, but is there um is there movement in talking to some of the larger chains with having a you know um a larger presence in the downtown area?

I can answer that.

You know, part of my job is is working with uh the leaders of the hotel um uh organizations, companies, and they are all waiting for this project.

Um, this is a destination that they want to have a major investment in, and I can say that um about all the major brands.

Um they want uh they're they're interested in this uh beyond you know other locations we have around the valley, they're all holding out for this one.

Uh so yes, you will have a a good number of developers as well as major hotel brands that will want to put their um interest out on the table for us to look at.

Yeah, councilwoman Stark and then councilwoman Pastor.

Yeah, I I have a question.

So um about 10 years ago, the uh National Planning Association held their uh conference here.

I happen to be the president of the local chapter, so I got to be the host.

And um we actually had an issue with hotel rooms because there were other smaller conferences going on.

So the Renaissance was taken, and some of um our uh attendees had to hit the light rail and go further north.

How do you coordinate with um the hotels that may be having other conferences going on?

Um it was it it wasn't too bad for us.

I mean, our our conference was only about 5,000, which is still a pretty good number, but you know, I know it's smaller than a lot you have.

But it was a concern, and uh talking to um national leadership, they had said I hope you would have had another hotel.

We were happy to be there.

We had a great time, great conference.

They love the convention center, but um, they were concerned.

Of course, since then we've had a couple small boutique hotels built that would help.

But how do you coordinate that?

So that's a great question, and that's something that our team works on on the daily basis.

And you can imagine being at the level of occupancy we have at the convention center, the amount of demand that we have on the city.

Um we we like to get to playing Tetris, right?

So we're always working and moving and shifting groups around, but that is a result of just the number of hotel rooms we have downtown.

And so when you have an attractive destination, uh, as we do, we at Visit Phoenix are always looking on filling the convention center, bringing new conventions in, but the hotels are doing the same thing.

And so we work with them on the daily basis, and we identify open windows to um uh target uh space and date availability and go after these large events.

Um, but that we do run into this from time to time and quite often where you know we're we have to start pulling hotel uh blocks uh from multiple hotels just to fulfill the number of rooms needed.

So that's probably why we've heard over and over most for us is we need more hotel uh convention caliber hotel rooms downtown.

Yeah.

Councilwoman Pastor.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Um I actually want to go back to the competitive destinations.

Out of all those um hotels in the competitive destination area, which ones are considered a top-tier destination?

So top tier, let's go back to the the Houston one first.

And you start looking at the ones that we compete with on a daily basis.

That's what we try to put up here.

Um uh Councilwoman Pastor is the ones that we we compete with uh on the regular.

Um you can see these are a lot of of cities in the warmer destination climates.

Uh Dallas, uh Houston is uh one of the the two top in the state of Texas.

San Antonio uh is a very popular destination that we compete with.

We you know, the the thing with San Antonio is their their uh ability to get in and out of the city through the airport is a little bit um uh it's it's not as as attractive as the other two cities.

Austin is as we've all seen Austin change over the last decade or more.

I remember living in in San Antonio in Austin was a place you did want to be, and now good luck getting in, right?

And so they have turned into that.

If you go into the next slide.

Seattle out of this one is one that is up and coming.

The others we compete with on the regular basis.

And this is you'll find at the end of the day, there's probably a good top 20, 25 cities that are known for convention destinations.

As you start peeling up back in like what are the ones that we the size we have that we're competing against, it's gonna be you know, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Denver, and the next slide, Las Vegas being the anomaly, they're gonna get a lot of the meetings, and obviously um uh Orlando.

Nashville on Nashville, we're keeping our eye on it.

I'm sure you are.

Yes.

Um, and so the reason why I'm asking that, I've been to Nashville, Vegas, Atlanta's not on here, and Kansas City.

And all those uh convention centers uh for whatever reason has had an expansion and probably now going to expand even further.

But in addition to that, uh they all had hotels connected to the convention center.

Yeah.

And in particular, I went to Kansas City in the winter, and it was snowing at that time, and I happened to be at a hotel that was disconnected from the convention center, but I was close enough to jump in in order uh to be warm and be able to uh move through the convention center.

So I think it's important as we're having this conversation that we're not siloing uh our convention center and hotel.

I think it has to go together in order to make the largest impact and economic decision uh for the city.

Uh I would say our convention centers, the space that we have in downtown is one of our last biggest assets that we can do, and it's in the hands of us council to figure out what what we're gonna do for the future uh in this space and be competitive.

The other piece is um meeting planners.

You talk about meeting planners.

Meeting planners, I learned about hotel industry and hospitality industry due to uh one of my partners in crime, uh Michael Peterson and Carvia, who came from the hotel industry after 30 years, and he was the one who taught me the economic engine of our downtown and our convention center and how the hotel industry works with the convention center in order to move people within our city, and and in particular downtown.

And uh he taught me the value of this space because I didn't understand it when I first entered, and then I learned it really quick and uh understood it, and he would talk about to me the top tiers, yeah, and he would go uh go to compete to bring those uh conventions to Phoenix uh through the Marriott.

And so I learned so much, and this is how much I I appreciate uh the fact of the hotel industry and the hospitality industry and the convention center and the synergy that happens that brings economic development.

My second question is I noticed that this is for information and discussion.

Uh will this come back for a do we approve, or what is it that we need to do in order to continue to move forward in progress?

And I don't know who that goes to.

Well, so madam chair, uh councilwoman Pastor, uh we wanted to present information uh to this uh subcommittee just to give you an idea of where we stand uh in this industry.

Uh you know, it's hard for me to say this, but our West Building is about to be 20 years old.

Uh that building to me, you know, I've been with the city for a while, it still feels like and looks like the new building.

And uh, you know, that's truly a testament to our facility and maintenance staff that keep the building up, um, and we still get a lot of good feedback from um our attendees.

But the truth of the matter is that that building is almost two decades old.

Um, and I believe that the investment that was made by the city and council at the time um in the convention center to expand that convention center again over 20 years ago um was a a sound decision.

I mean that moved the convention center from being called the Civic Plaza to the Phoenix Convention Center, and it got us a seat at the table.

Um, and and I think now we're in a position, a unique position to where we can move forward closer to the head of that table.

And I think that uh what we wanted to do was really just make sure that this subcommittee had the information to then uh make a decision as to what makes the most sense for the city going forward, um, and any sort of uh recommendation.

Um, we would be happy to come back with more information if if that is needed.

Uh, but we are prepared to act on the uh recommendations and advice uh from the council.

Okay, I have two more questions.

Yes, ma'am.

Are we still considered a top tier or we ever were we ever considered a top tier?

We are a top tier destination, and I think that is uh I I would I would not say that for you know a decade or two back.

Uh we may have been uh a secondary or tertiary city, I don't think ever a tertiary, but when it comes to uh where we are today, we are a top-tier destination, especially as we continue to grow as an international destination.

When you when you start looking at the type of meetings, conventions that are interested in coming here, uh we are now entertaining meetings, conventions thanks to our city leaders of what we've built.

Semiconducting, we're getting semicon, the medical and health care investments that we're making with the with the bio core that's happening downtown.

We have had a huge increase of medical conventions coming in.

That we continue to see the parallels that with the city makes investments.

We're seeing those conventions come right behind them because they want to be here.

Those conventions though are some of the most attractive and sought after conventions in the country, and they want to be here.

And so I think to that, we're getting to a point where this is the right conversation, the right time to have this conversation of how do we continue to keep what we have.

Yeah, can I I can't imagine semiconducting getting smaller in the future.

I see that continue to grow.

And then what comes on the heels of that, uh, these other conventions because of where we are today.

So I I continue to see that uh we're at a right time to have this conversation about what's the future of the convention center looks like and the from the plan that that Jerry and the the city have put together uh with the works of CSNL, uh the Smith group.

If you remember, we presented that, I believe, uh last session or last year, where we showed um a visual of what could be built, um, which also included a hotel that would be connected to the conventioner, much of the questions we have there.

So those are the that's been thought through and and thought thought out.

So we're at that point now where uh understanding what the direction of city would like to take us, and like Jerry said, I think we're more than prepared to assist in that.

So it's great to hear that Phoenix is a top tier um if we I guess what I'm trying to figure out is if we don't advance, knowing with all the information we have and all the studies that demonstrate that we should should advance and grow and expand.

If we don't, then what?

Cities will pass us up.

Okay.

And so then that then it goes back to the slide of the economic impact or the lost of business.

And I I just only see us continuing to be uh really becoming an international city because we are becoming an international city, which means growth, which means eyes on us, but also conventions to come to the city.

I welcome anybody in midtown and uptown where I where there are hotels, but as a person that attends conventions, I like to be in the core in the center, so I can walk to uh that city and be able to enjoy it.

And sometimes uh Midtown has enough in that space for to enjoy uh and Durance's opening, so that would be great.

Some of them could walk to Durant's, but uh my point is is that we need to really look at and really have a discussion or an action in the future as to here's the directive because we're we have it, we've already formed it, and it's there.

So um thank you for your presentation.

I will uh take send it back to the vice mayor and see if we could uh in the future have an action.

Thank you so much, Councilman Pastor, for your questions and comments.

Um Ron Councilman Robinson asked you about uh companies being interested in hotels and in downtown, and I would ask you what is it that they're waiting for to invest in in downtown and in our convention center area.

There they are they are anxious to see an RFP, RFQ on the street and take action.

Okay, so given the the comments um I've heard from my fellow committee members today.

I think we would like to have a further discussion in the springtime about what um forward action might look like.

Is that a fair assessment?

I see some heads nodding to my right and left.

So if we could have that back in the in the spring, um is March or April.

I'm I'm I hate to put I don't want to not put a deadline on it, but I don't want to put an unreasonable one on.

So is March good or madam chair March March will be fine.

We'd be happy to come back.

Okay.

And Councilwoman Stark would like to um another comment.

Just one last comment.

So uh my brother was here for a medical convention, and he is actually in the plane flying back to Portland, but he said he had a terrific time.

I think what impressed him most is how much uh the city of Phoenix has grown up and what there is in the downtown to offer uh attendees of conventions.

So he had nothing but rave uh comments about the convention center.

So good work.

Thank you.

And before you um leave the table, please.

I do not want to forget about our um students.

We are blessed to be joined by students from North Park High School.

Is that North High School?

I apologize.

I have North Park on my brain for other reasons.

Um North High School, and welcome and thank you.

And we have um several of them signed up to speak on this item.

So if you gentlemen will stay at your seats in case we need you to answer some questions, we'll start first with um, and I'm gonna apologize ahead of time if I butcher any names.

I I really don't intend to.

Derek Amador.

Please come to the um podium and state your name for the record, and then you'll have two minutes to speak on the item.

Um, hello, my um can you sorry?

Um hello, my name is Derek Amador.

Um, I just want to thank you for inviting my school.

Um, and I was wondering if like there's one singular thing that we can do to boost convention like attendance or ratings, like one singular thing.

If you can it if the city can.

Yeah, this is what is the one single thing the city could do to uh to boost more conventions or more convention attendees?

Attendees.

More convention attendees.

Gentlemen, could you help us out there?

I'm gonna leave that to the experts.

Okay, so madam chair, members of subcommittee.

Uh that's an interesting question because there's there's a number of things that we would like to focus on.

But if we had to pick one, and if we had to pick one right now, I would say additional hotel rooms in downtown.

Uh we are we like to describe our situation as being lopsided in our rooms to space ratio.

Uh so having more uh hotel rooms allows us to maximize the potential of the current convention center.

And one thing I would like to do is is uh make sure that the subcommittee and our our guests understand when Ron mentioned convention hotels.

What we mean by that is uh hotels that are large enough to where they can commit a significant number of rooms for future business while still having enough room for what we call transient business.

So that's the weekly business, that sort of thing.

So uh a convention hotel, that's why we've been really focused on hotels that are 800 to 1200 rooms.

Uh the Sheraton Hotel, for example, is a thousand rooms, largest hotel in the state.

Uh but they are able to commit significant portion of their room block for future business, and that really bodes well for our industry.

Okay.

Wonderful.

Thank you for that.

Thank you for that excellent question.

And for coming down.

And then we have Lucas Van Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Um, my question is like, what's your plan?

You mentioned all the um all like the competition, especially in Texas and stuff.

And I was wondering like what's your plan to keep up with them?

Like, I know you talked a lot about hotels, but I feel like hot you like, I don't know much, but you could be doing um like hotels and like um different, there's different like draws to get people in rather than like some city in Texas.

I feel like I don't know, I feel like just what's your plan to like be better than the other convention centers.

Thank you for your question, gentlemen.

No, I think that's a great question.

And if you're curious about that, you may have a future in planning and so city planning.

So when you think about what draws people in, just think about when you travel.

What what are things that excite you when you go to a city?

So think of like the restaurants, the attractions, the museums, um those are all very important.

Um those are the type of things we look at when we start thinking about what makes the a city a place where you want to stay longer.

And so we have a strategy where we bring people in.

Uh our goal is as we look to attract new attractions.

Uh Science Center is a great example of that.

They just uh introduced a state-of-the-art dome there that's like the sphere in Vegas.

We think it's nicer, it's it's more intimate.

But that would make me want to stay one more day when I go to the convention and see that.

And so what we do is we try to find as many of those attractors as possible to be able to sell to the travelers to say you may want to stay one more day.

You may want to stay one more day and go hike Camelback Mountain.

You may want to go stay one more day and go play golf or go to Salt River.

And so those are the type of things that we think about every single day.

How do we build the very best city that we can build that our citizens are excited to live in?

The visitors can't wait to come check it out.

Great question.

Thank you so much.

Did you have any more or are you good?

Uh no, I'm good.

Thank you.

Wonderful.

Thank you for that great question.

Our next speaker is Angelina Reyes.

Good morning.

My name is Angelina Reyes, a student at North High School.

Thank you for this opportunity for me and my classmates to be here today.

And speaking to you guys about our community.

Today I want to speak on the convention center.

I'm very neutral about this topic.

Yes, it is a good development as a convention center, is a well-used place.

But you keep mentioning other cities such as Austin, San Antonio, and Houston.

But that's all about other people coming to our city.

How is this going to benefit us and our tax money?

Is this really going to a good cause?

Thank you for that question.

So, Madam Chair, members of the subcommittee, Angelina, that's a very good question.

And you have to forgive me when we talk about the economic impact.

And sometimes I feel like I need to step back and kind of explain a little bit more about what that actually means.

So thanks for the opportunity to do that.

When money comes into the city, it allows the city to, it gives the city the resources it needs to develop or to deliver the services that it does to the community.

So when people come in, especially from outside of the state and visit this destination, and as I mentioned before, they're spending money on hotels, they're spending money at the bars and restaurants.

And it allows the city the flexibility to deliver on its promises to the citizens, and um and allows the uh delivery of services to take place seamlessly.

So the more money that we're able to bring in, the more that we're able to give to the general fund that gives our other uh uh partner departments within the city the resources that they need to be successful.

So is that answer your question?

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your question.

That was a very excellent one.

I think that um we forget because we're so close to it.

We use those tax dollars to pay for our parks and our library and our fire department and our police department and streets, and so it's a very important topic.

Our next speaker is Marcos Hernandez.

Welcome.

Uh, how many jobs would these new hotels create?

How many jobs will the new hotels create?

Yeah.

So that's a great question.

And it really depends on the the size and scale of the hotel.

So larger hotels will employ a lot more people than the smaller hotels.

And so, you know, I've worked on a number of hotels.

My background is hotel development.

And so when you get into the development phase, you can think of all the workers that go in to build a building, right?

And so you can think of there's thousands and thousands of people that go in that it takes to build um, let's say a 20, 30 story building, something like the Sheraton.

And so uh when you start thinking about hotels that have a thousand rooms, they may have five, six, seven hundred people, full-time workers that work there.

So, in addition to the thousands that are employed to build the building, then you have the workers that are gonna be there to continue the the hotel to be operable.

And so, what's great about this though is as you create demand with the hotels, it's called a halo effect.

And so, what happens if you have a thriving business, if you have a restaurant, or if you if you're a florist, you think of all these hotels that buy fresh flowers.

There's a direct correlation what we call compression or halo effect that goes out and starts creating demand for future businesses to open around that because you have all these wonderful uh visitors from out of town that need to buy things or want to go explore things, and so in addition to the hotels, you have a lot more small businesses opening up around that area.

Excellent question.

Did you have any more?

Uh no, thank you.

Thank you so much.

And next we have David Lee, my name is David Lee, and thank you for inviting me, my classmates to this meeting.

Uh I have a question.

So uh based on what you're uh talking about, what uh do you uh you you plan on uh building more hotels and rooms for for these buildings?

Uh do uh is there a reason behind us based on the statistics from the grass or what or from the people themselves uh that are uh want wanting these demands for needing more hotel rooms or um something else like that.

So where so where the information comes from that informs us on the need for additional hotels, uh we did have a study that was completed.

Uh Ron mentioned it was originally completed in 2019.

Um we did have the impact of the pandemic that caused us to uh reevaluate those recommendations and come back in 2022.

But it was in that study when it was identified that uh we do have a need for additional hotels uh in in downtown.

You know, a lot of the examples that we used uh earlier kind of speak to uh the benefits of having more hotels uh for us specifically in this destination.

Um it's important because you know councilwoman Stark mentioned you know, a challenge with an event that that she was here for just because of the hotel that they were in and not as enough rooms, so people had to book what we call outside of the block, which means I always like to refer to that as outside of walking distance.

So if you think of walking distance as like a quarter mile from the convention center, anything outside of that um is will be determined as uh outside the block.

And uh, you know, that that just puts us at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to some of these other cities that we talked about as our competitive cities.

So additional hotels would close that gap between us um and our competitive cities and really put us uh in a position where we're more top of mind with these meeting planners as they're looking at other destinations.

So does that answer your question?

Uh yes, thank you.

Yes, that's an excellent question.

We do try to make sure we make our decisions based on data and um and facts.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Stephanie Gonzalez.

Okay, hello, my name is Stephanie.

Um my question for you guys is is there any properties that can that you see in the downtown that can we be rebuilt for hotels to limit the like the shortage of the hotels.

So uh madam chair, members of the subcommittee, uh that's a very good question.

When you look at or based off of what I was saying before about the the walking distance, um you know, we have a unique position because we are the fifth largest city in the country, yet our downtown is still relatively young when you compare it to um other uh older cities in the country.

Uh that being said, we still do not have a lot of vacant land uh in and around the convention center, and more importantly, vacant land that is owned and controlled by the city that we have more influence over.

Um that being said, we do have what we refer to as underutilized land um in and around the convention center.

One in particular is uh we do have an active parking garage that's directly across the street from the west building of the convention center.

Um right now, given the growth of downtown, it could be argued that a parking garage is not the highest and best use of that property, so there's potential for for that property.

Um and then we spent a lot of time talking about the South Building uh this morning.

The South Building, which is part of the convention center, um, is on what we call a super block in downtown.

And what I mean by that is it's essentially think of four regular-sized city blocks all squished together, it forms that super block.

And on that super block, we've got one building, uh one single-story building, which is this the South Building.

At the time when it was built back in the late 80s, uh, that was the highest and best use of that property.

But as I mentioned before, given the growth of downtown, we're at a position where it makes a lot of sense to re-evaluate uh what would be the highest and best use of that property.

And in the conceptual master plan that was presented to city council, we did focus on that South Building site as the uh the best site for growth for the convention center, whether it being a a new South Building, um, but then also developing half of that block, um, and to try to mirror a little bit of what we've got on the north side of that block, which we call our north building.

And one thing that we did uh which was unique at the time when we built the uh completed the expansion, we went vertical.

Uh we Ron was talking about New Orleans.

New Orleans has a lot of square footage, but it's all linear.

I mean, you go to New Orleans, you're gonna walk a lot, right?

But here at the with Phoenix, uh we have vertical um development, meaning that we've got uh a large amount of space in more of a compact footprint.

So if we follow that same design theory on the north half of the south building site, the current South Building site, that leaves the south half for additional development, um, and most importantly, uh hotel development um on that south side.

Thank you for your question.

Andrea Quintana.

Um good morning.

Thank you for having me and my classmates here.

Um so you guys were talking about um like building a hotel, uh like connecting it to the building so people wouldn't have to like walk as far.

So what would that look like?

Would you guys have to purchase more land or use the land that you were talking about that was underused?

Like to make a hotel connected to the convention center.

So, madam chair, members of the subcommittee, uh, yes, it would be just what I was talking about before using the existing land that we have.

Um, and in that conceptual master plan, it does show uh a hotel, an 800 to 1200 room hotel um physically connected to uh what would be called the new South Building site.

One thing that's unique, uh Ron mentioned the company Smith Group that worked with us to develop that conceptual master plan.

Um my dad was an architect, so I remember him drafting and drawing with a pencil on a paper.

It's so different now.

I mean, they use uh you know AutoCAD, they use a lot of uh different sorts of computer programming.

So it's so advanced that they were able to put me in a virtual space um to walk what that walking path would be from a hotel to the convention center site, so I could visually see what that uh movement would be like, and um it's incredible, but it's also puts us at a in a good position because as we mentioned before, there's a lot of advantages to having a hotel physically connected uh to the convention center.

So that's where we would be looking to do that.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

Victor Mendieta.

Hopefully, I didn't butcher that too badly.

Hi.

Uh first I'll say thank you to Councilwoman Pastor for inviting us here.

It is an amazing opportunity.

Uh I'd like to thank everyone for their time.

Um a few questions.

I well, I have a few questions.

My first question is you did mention a hotel that was around 20 years old.

So, what would your goal be for that hotel?

Would it be to renovate it or would it be to reboot it from scratch?

Yeah.

So Madam Chair, members of the subcommittee, Victor, the the building I was referring to that's 20 years old, is actually the west building of the convention center.

So right now, what we would do, so if I back up a little bit, when we expanded the convention center uh back in 2009, we built two new buildings.

Um and uh we but we also invested in the existing building, which is the South Building.

Um so what we did, what I mean by that is we um applied resources to the fit and finish of that building so that if people were using that building as opposed to the west or the north, then the new buildings uh inside it would still look and feel the same.

So if we do get to a point where we're able to expand our convention center and the west building, which is 20 years old, becomes the the older building, uh, we would also make sure that we dedicate resources to bring update what's uh the interior of that building so that when people are inside uh they don't feel the difference between the two.

Uh I also asked for like what would be the estimated cost of the of a new hotel or new hotels?

I do hear a lot mentioned the hotels like large, small or medium, but I haven't heard of any cost.

Yeah, you so a hotel these days, when you look at the caliber of hotel, an upper upscale, and this is um a nice hotel, nice convention hotel.

Um, you can go anywhere uh from 70,000 per room to well over a hundred thousand per room to build out.

So think about that.

If you're building a thousand room hotel, you could spend over a hundred thousand dollars per room, or we call keys, uh, to build that hotel.

So that's just the hotel piece in the convention or in the uh the meeting uh space.

When you get into a convention center uh expansion, that's just uh the building uh uh of the continuation of the expansion, you know, that ranges as well, right?

And so you can spend um what we're talking about anywhere from you know 600 million up to 800 million, let's say, on that.

And you saw on the the slides earlier, uh, some of these cities are investing billions of dollars into their growth.

And so uh, but some of those are tearing theirs down and um rebuilding it.

It's a great question you're asking because there is a cost that is associated with with building these type of facilities.

But a hotel for this type of caliper, uh, a hundred thousand dollars per key is right on par.

And then we'll be like, what would be your goal?

Like how many rooms would you like to increase to like to kind of reach your like how many rooms would you like to like have in the future?

Oh, that's a great question.

In downtown, so you think about there's a great uh chart.

I don't think we have it, but we're talking about how we use data for all of our decisions.

Uh, there's a there is a um uh uh a chart that we look at that shows all of our major competitor cities and how many hotel rooms they have within uh a half mile radius of their convention center.

Now, some of these cities have a lot of hotels around their convention center.

Um, and so I I forget where we are, we're like 16th, 17th on the list.

But when you start looking at us, um, if I had a magic wand and if I could just wave it, I would want to be at the top of the list and have as as many hotels uh within a walking distance to the convention center.

But there's there's there's some math involved in that.

You know, one of the things we look at is you have to, we Jerry spoke earlier about a rooms to space ratio.

So there's a there's math that we use to calculate how much meeting space do we have and how much uh sleeping rooms or hotel rooms do we have to accommodate that meeting space.

And so we would use those formulas uh to justify how many rooms we need to build now.

And so when you look at the number of rooms, the the 800 to 1200 rooms in the last study, um, our team would say you could probably double that, and we could fill that you know fairly quickly.

So you're getting closer to you know 2,000 rooms uh or or or so, um, a little over that.

So a great question, but it all depends on how much meeting space we're gonna add, and also what's the demand?

We're not gonna build a hotel uh or a lot of hotel rooms if we don't have the demand to fill them, and nor will the hotel owners build it, right?

So we have to find that sweet spot in there uh to justify how many rooms we really want to have in the future.

Yeah, all right.

Uh two more questions.

So, like you said, like if you had a magic one and all the hotel rooms, like and everything was done with the expansion and everything, how much revenue would that bring to the city of Phoenix?

Okay.

So, Madam Chair members of the subcommittee, uh a lot.

Um so if you if you look at um the you know, in one of the slides earlier, it talked about the economic impact of the expansion um from 2009 to 2024, and that was at 5.2 billion dollars.

Um, so you know, when you look at the amount of revenue that comes in, if we have a good year when it comes to number of conventions, we're looking around 300 million dollars that we could say comes in um from the convention business of that year.

Um, so if you look at, I mean, I can't say that a future expansion would would double it, but it would increase it and it would give us uh a better chance of hosting uh what we would deem a large convention, hosting two of those at the exact same time.

Um so that's one of the main draws for us in in having additional space and additional hotel rooms to support it.

Um so uh so I guess the best way without you know doing the the math, the best way to uh answer your question would probably say that we could probably increase our revenue by maybe 50 percent.

I have one last question.

It would be what what do you seek in a convention when you go to attend question?

What do we seek when we go to conventions?

Yes, when we attend as attendees, yes, um style, feel, people, restaurants, hotels, vibrancy, life.

And also I think conventions really are uh uh an important way to learn.

Um I was uh a planner before I retired, and I went to the national planning uh conferences every year, and I learned a lot.

I got to meet a lot of colleagues from throughout the United States, but as a planner, I also was interested in the look and the feel of the city.

So I think it's a great experience.

If you ever have a chance to attend uh a conference, you should.

Yeah, learning and networking as well as being able to experience another city is really an awesome uh experience.

So thank you.

It broadens your horizons, just what all my colleagues have said.

It gives you a chance to, in a lot of cases, solidify or to ensure that what you're doing is the right thing because you learn from others, and if they're doing the same things there, you're thinking, oh, or you might pick up an idea from someone else that hasn't been explored here, you can sit there and say, ooh, have we ever considered this center or the other thing?

Excellent questions.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time as well.

We have Liliana Lopez.

Well, good morning, everyone.

I wanted to thank you guys for giving us the opportunity to comment today.

And as a student and a part of the next generation here growing up in Phoenix, I wanted to ask you guys what pens do you guys have in place for us to support and bring a positive contribution to your center.

I'll jump on that one first, if I if I may.

So I grew up in in the hospitality industry.

So tourism, travel and tourism.

And one thing that I would um I think that we do a really poor job of uh around just in the US as we talk about our industry is how vast and how broad our industry is.

One thing that was said to me early on that is always kept with me is hospitality goes from A to Z.

It's from architecture.

So think about we've just been talking about building facilities, you know, uh the hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars uh of investment, um employing thousands of people to Z.

Think about like zoology and zoologists.

We have a great zoo here.

You know how that zoo has money to feed their animals, is by people going through there, visitors going through there.

So when you think of tourism, it is such a broad industry.

And so I always like to take the the opportunity when I get to speak with with um you all is think about our industry not as what we've done a bad job of painting it as really the um the the service level, which is is very important to the vitality and growth and the hospitality that we have, but think of how other parts of what you're gonna learn in school and whether it be from you know being someone on the uh the design side, the architecture side, uh accounting, human resources, all the things that go into making any company great, hospitality has that and so much more.

Think of the airlines, think of autonomous vehicles.

We have an incredible company here called Waymo that moves people around without anyone driving.

A lot of visitors use that, and they have that mindset when they go out to create this technology.

So it's a wonderful industry to explore.

And the good thing is people will never stop traveling and never stop exploring.

Uh, Councilman Robinson and others spoke about what travel and tourism does for us.

When we get to travel, we get to explore the cities, and if we travel internationally, we get to we get to explore other cultures.

And what I love about that, that's the best education that any of us could ever sign up for.

Understanding how how similar we all are around the country, around the world.

And you only get to do that when you travel.

So those are the fun things I love to talk about as my little you know, two-minute pitch as to look at our industry, look at it through those lenses of all the wonderful things you can do that get to touch and service uh the travel industry.

Thank you for your question.

Very good answer.

And last but not least, we have Alejandro.

Is it Gizar?

Again, I apologize.

Uh thanks for having me here, I guess.

I have nothing.

No, okay.

I don't think you for being with us.

Yeah.

If you don't have a question, if you don't have a question, you're fine.

You can just end it.

You can just say thank you for having us.

Thanks for having me.

Absolutely.

You're welcome.

And I just want to one more.

I apologize, I don't have that person on here, but if you could step to the microphone and say your name.

Hi, uh, thank you for having me.

My name is Erith Johnson.

I'm with North High School.

Um, I have a question when it comes to uh city events.

I don't I know everyone's talking about like the hotels and stuff like that.

I think like I know because people are thinking about like the uh sorry, like building and like just bringing people together when it comes to like restaurants and all that other stuff, but I think what's more important is like the community, and I feel like if people have more events outside of you know, like stores and stuff like that, and restaurants, I feel like people would be more interested in coming here.

Um, that's my opinion as someone who lives in this area.

I feel like it gets a little bit boring, no offense.

I just think that there's not events going on as much as there could be, you know.

And that's my opinion.

Well, in your opinion, matters, and thank you very much for sharing with us.

I think that it's important for us to um we try to communicate, and so maybe we need to communicate a little bit better with our school districts about the different events that are available for local community members as well as when we have visitors because those events are for for both, and you're very fortunate to live not too far from downtown.

So we'll work a little harder to make sure we communicate better with with our schools.

So thank you for sharing.

That's very important.

Uh of course, I just want to say one more thing.

I just think that like if you want to attract people, you have to make things like more out there for also people that live here because if they are having a good time here, other people are gonna have a good time when they come over.

You are absolutely correct.

Thank you.

That's a very excellent comment.

Thank you.

Um, thank you again.

I want to thank all of our students from North High School uh for your interest and and desire to improve our city.

Thank Councilwoman Pastor for inviting them.

Um I we are a top tier city in in the convention center, um, and our data shows that we need another large downtown hotel, and I look forward to seeing um our when you return with a request for proposal and some a plan to move forward.

I appreciate the work that you did um in this update.

Do my um council members have any final comments?

I thank you for being here.

Hey Councilwoman Pastor.

Yes, I would like to thank my colleagues for being patient in this process.

Uh they had asked me to come speak at their class, and I said, uh, I'd rather you come see me because you can learn as you're learning right now in real time.

But addition to in addition to that, uh, they can experience what uh city government really what government's all about.

Uh this is a government class, and I am thought this is uh a hands-on way of learning.

I would like to thank Mr.

Uh Palomera and Miss Espinosa for their government class and organizing this and making it happen.

Um thank you.

Give me the grace because this happened real quick, and so uh appreciate it.

And I think we did have a great conversation in the space of you're hearing from uh young students that are going that live in this community, but then are going to become adults and what they want to see within their community.

I agree we need more events in the sense of uh we have events around big things, but we need more local events in the downtown area.

Um that costs money, and so we have to figure out who will sponsor those events.

All of this is being uh is being built with uh taxpayers, but also in a partnership, what they they call a public private partnership where a private entity will come in and they will do the hotel and they will front the money as we uh let them use the land, and so those are partnerships that we do.

So thank you, appreciate it absolutely.

And I just have one uh my other item is any future agenda item request while y'all are here.

Okay, hearing none, then we will adjourn the meeting.

Thank you all.

Uh helps us uh eliminate a lot of the manual labor with weeding.

So this tractor is uh made specifically to mechanically weed, and it is