by Fred Seely
Editorial Director
The people who drive Jacksonville’s convention business still want a bigger meeting facility but they’re using a different plan of attack to get it.
“We want it and need it, but the current feeling of our board is that a new or expanded convention center should be part of an overall master plan,” said John Reyes, president of Jacksonville & the Beaches Convention and Visitors Bureau. “It will make sense in the overall growth of the city. We think we can continue our message as part of an overall plan.”
Efforts in the recent past have been initiated and promoted by the CVB with Reyes’ predecessor, Kitty Ratcliffe, reaching out to the community for a larger center.
Like Ratcliffe, Reyes says we need something at least three times larger than the present 78,000 square feet in the Osborn Center. Unlike Ratcliffe, he isn’t going to go it alone.
“We want to keep the concept on the table whenever the downtown master plan is discussed,” he said. “A convention center is a big element, just like a courthouse. It should be a big part of any plan.”
Reyes made the comments Friday after a speech to the Chamber’s Downtown Council at its semi-monthly meeting at the River City Brewing Company. The Council can expect more discussion about downtown plans at its next meeting when Jacksonville Economic Development Commission Executive Director Ron Barton visits on Feb. 17.
Reyes celebrated his first year here Friday — he got the job when Ratcliffe moved to New Orleans to become vice president of that city’s convention bureau — and says he isn’t going to express a preference for any of the four locations proposed in a study commissioned by the CVB.
“I just want a bigger space and there are lots of models out there,” he said. “Calgary (the Canadian city in the Alberta province) actually has two centers, one small and one large. Boston has several facilities.
“I’m not advocating a huge building. We don’t want to be Miami, Orlando or New Orleans. But, with what we have, we’re limited to five percent of the conventions that are out there. With 250,000 square feet, we’ll be in the running for 85 percent.”
Ratcliffe’s campaign was slowed when it became clear that the City administration had other priorities for its money and the issue almost vanished from general discussion when she left the city.
Reyes says he wants it to get back into the mix.
“Any time that growth is talked about, we want the idea of a new center or bigger Osborn Center to be part of the talk,” he said.