Published February 2001

Lynnwood, Everett eye plans for events facilities

By Kimberly Hilden
Herald Business Journal Assistant Editor

When people attend a convention in Snohomish County, they do more than sit in a banquet room for hours on end, talking to associates and listening to speeches. They spend money — at hotels, restaurants and retailers — boosting the local economy.

Last year, the Snohomish County Tourism Bureau assisted in the booking of 23 conventions, meetings or other events held in the year 2000, with an economic impact of $217,023, said Amy Spain, Group Sales Executive with the bureau.

“That dollar amount is determined by a multiplication formula,” she said. “We take (a predetermined) dollar amount, times the number of people, times the number of days they’re in the county.”

To increase one of the multipliers — days spent in the area — the bureau provides visitor guides for groups planning on holding their event in the county, Spain said.

“Their members get a chance to learn about our community before they come, and that also encourages them to stay an extra day or two either before or after the convention,” she said.

But increasing the number of people per event takes more than brochures and guides; it takes a facility large enough to hold a larger event — one with possibly thousands of people in attendance — and it’s something the county lacks, officials say.

“We could go after so many more conventions if we had a place to put them,” said Sandy Ward, Executive Director of the tourism bureau. “Right now, we can go after smaller groups of people.”

But that could change in the next couple of years as the cities of Lynnwood and Everett consider proposals for large special-events facilities.

“It’s been a long-term need of South County to have a place where we could have large groups meeting,” said Vic Ericson, Lynnwood Economic Development Manager.

To address this concern, the Lynnwood City Council created a Public Facilities District in August 1999.

A Public Facilities District, or PFD, is a five-member board empowered to sell bonds and raise money for a convention center/events facility. Under state law, the PFD can use 0.033 percent of the state sales tax generated within the region it serves to finance such a center, but construction must begin by January 2003.

A feasibility study done last year by San Francisco-based PKF Consulting recommended a $34 million, 80,000-square-foot facility with 40,000 square feet set aside for an exhibition hall and meeting space, and the rest used for facilities that serve the convention center, such as office and lobby space, Ericson said.

According to the PKF report, the center could have a potential economic benefit of $9 million annually, Ericson said.

“A brand new convention center at this point is not something that would happen right away,” he said. “Bearing in mind that we have this 2003 deadline, the PFD is now looking at existing buildings that might be converted as a site.”

Everett also is considering a proposal for a special-events facility that could handle conferences, conventions, trade shows, graduations and even sporting events, city Executive Director Don Hale said.

“We started (taking a) serious look at it about a year ago, and we did that because there’s been really a significant need to have a large public-events facility,” Hale said.

The Everett City Council recently received a final feasibility report on the facility — a report that looks “very, very positive,” Hale said.

The study, done by Washington, D.C.-based Brailsford & Dunlavey, looked at three facility alternatives ranging in cost from $35 million to $48 million that could seat about 8,000 for hockey games, 8,400 for basketball games and 10,000 people for concerts, Hale said.

With a report in hand, the city’s next step is to consider formation of a PFD, which then would make the decision whether to continue with the special-events facility, Hale said.

Like the PFD for Lynnwood, an Everett PFD would face a 2003 deadline, but Hale said that if the proposal moves forward, the city would expect to have the facility completed in 2003.

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