Right now, city officials believe the new and improved Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center will cost between $3.3 billion and $3.5 billion. That estimate has a cushion built in for contingencies or roadblocks, such as the impact tariffs may have on construction costs, Rosa Fleming, director of event and convention services, told the council. She added that because tariffs pose a threat to costs, stakeholders are looking to pre-order large amounts of steel and materials needed for the project to avoid price escalation.
The horseshoe was presented with a model of the future convention center Wednesday morning. Glitzy renderings displayed impeccable landscaping, multi-story glass paneling and rooftop views of the Dallas skyline. It is the most in-depth look at the development since City Hall began discussing the need for an updated space in 2018.
While the planning process has spanned many years, Dallas officials have been especially motivated to break ground on the convention center upgrades in recent months. In March, the city announced the procurement of the FIFA World Cup’s International Broadcast Center, which will see thousands of international journalists making the complex home base at the start of next year. Fifteen million dollars have already been earmarked for upgrades to the center’s roof, climate control and power infrastructure.
“Right now you're at schematics. The money that's going to be spent in the next 10 to 12 months will be for FIFA and getting the convention center, the first part of it, raised. And in that it's also the ordering of steel, et cetera,” Jack Matthews, the leader of the firm Inspire Dallas LLC that has been tasked with overseeing the development, told the council. “You're getting ready to get fixed prices about a year from right now, give or take a month or two on each side.”
Even with a finalized budget a year out, the project needs funds now to get off the ground, Dallas’ Chief Financial Officer, Jack Ireland, told the council. Those funds are necessary for hard costs, like those incurred by purchasing materials in advance and working on the construction planned in advance of the International Broadcast Center, and soft costs, like the fees paid to the designers and managers involved in running the project.
The Dallas City Council was shown a model of the proposed convention center. Some members were frustrated by the depicted greenspace, which will really be more than 30 acres of developable land.
City of Dallas
Those funds will be distributed on an as-needed basis, Ireland said. The funding would ideally come from a billion-dollar “bridge loan” that the council will be asked to vote on June 11. Several council members and Ireland commented on the amount of media coverage that focused on the bridge loan after the briefing was posted to the city website, stating that concern about the high dollar amount had been overblown for what is a standard financing strategy.
“I don't know where the confusion came from, but to clear it up, it is a tool that is frequently used. It is especially used on large projects. I think this qualifies as a large project and it is necessary to have funding available to get the project started,” Ireland said. “This is a way of moving the project forward at this point in time.”
As to why the project needs to move forward at all, city officials say Dallas is quickly slipping through the ranks of desirable cities for conventions, which, along with hordes of people walking through downtown wearing oversized lanyards, typically bring waves of tourism dollars.
While Dallas used to be among the top five cities in the United States for convention hosting alongside Las Vegas, Chicago, New York and Houston, it has lost ground. Investments in San Antonio and Austin mean that while Dallas still holds the No. 6 spot, it will soon be overtaken, officials warned.
That lost ground is due to the general wear and tear on the current convention center, which boasts $500-600 million in deferred maintenance, a lack of walkable retail and dining facilities in the surrounding areas, and a lack of transportation between the convention center and Dallas’ other neighborhoods. Officials assert that the new convention center plan solves all of those issues.
Sixty-four major conventions are already booked for 2029 and onwards, officials said, giving the project a hard deadline. Those gatherings could amount to $1.66 billion in economic impact, and 109 other conventions have signaled their interest in Dallas as a landing place. They’re just waiting for the city to iron out the details on the convention center development.
Even with all that promise, the lack of a concrete financial plan left some council members feeling shaky.
Council member Cara Mendelsohn drew attention to the $270 million the city still owes on the current convention center, and said that a lack of a repayment schedule, bridge loan allotment plan, long-term revenue forecast and risk analysis left her feeling confident in her initial vote against the new convention center.
“This is a good project. I'm not opposed to a convention center project, but we weren't ready to go as far as we did with so little information,” Mendelsohn said. “I was surprised when I read this presentation that that information still has not been forthcoming. And it's concerning.”
A Convention Center For Everyone, Even the Birds
It would be impossible to convey every intricacy and nuance of a four-plus-hour council briefing in a single news article. Still, when the phrase “bird safe glass” is used in a design unveiling, we, as the Dallas Observer, have an obligation to inform the public. Before things got a bit tense regarding the financials of this whole deal, Council member Kathy Stewart, who sits as chair of the council’s Parks, Trails, and the Environment committee, inquired about the convention center’s impact on migratory birds.Before you scoff, we point you to this article by The Guardian about how critical Texas, specifically the North Texas region, is to migratory patterns for many bird species. Estimates say a billion birds die after flying into glass skyscrapers each year, and Dallas has its fair share of responsibility for that. Migration peaks at nighttime, The Guardian reports, and as a city exceptionally comfortable with light pollution, Dallas serves as “a burning beacon” for our feathery friends.
But anyway, back to the convention center. A concerned Stewart told city staff she’s had “numerous” inquiries about how the development will impact birds en route.
“It's an important topic that we're addressing,” an official with the project assured Stewart. “When it comes to bird-safing [the convention center], we're ensuring that we are limiting the amount of glass and that when we have glass, it's actually a bird-safe glass. The technologies are dramatically improved.”
The development has an ecologist on staff, the official told the council, and the plan is being worked in tandem with the Arboretum to ensure no feathers are ruffled. That official added that landscaping components, such as bioswales and the appropriate flora and fauna, will also be incorporated into the design to ensure peak bird-friendliness.
But that wasn’t the end of the bird discussion! The mention of bird-friendly plantings inspired council member Gay Donnell Willis, who wanted to ensure the convention center won’t be too bird-friendly.
“I understand that we want to be sensitive to that, but you also discussed flora and fauna and … I don't know that we're trying to attract this sort of thing to this facility,” Willis said. “I'm just a little concerned about us leaning so far one way that we're maybe creating an issue around all that comes with migratory birds.”
Once again, the council was told not to worry. The complex will be bird-safe, but work will be done to ensure the facility is not bird-inviting. “There is no intention to draw birds to the site,” city staff said.
Unless, of course, that bird hopes to connect with other career professionals, attend a few vaguely informative panels and awkwardly stand around a happy hour where everyone is secretly wondering how early they can leave without being improper.
