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“The Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) has been lobbying for a Columbia County convention center since their inception, which is almost a decade,” Allen said. “We’ve had multiple people for a long time saying that we needed a convention center; the issue being we didn’t have a space large enough to host our own citizens who wanted to have large events.” Commissioner Charles Allen, who heads the Development Services Committee, expanded on the issue, stating that the commission has run into many situations where people have called in to criticize the Savannah Rapids Pavilion for not being large enough to accommodate certain events. Aside from hearing the complaints of dissatisfied citizens firsthand, Allen said that a fair amount of research was also considered before the project was conceived. “We’ve had a number of surveys done over the years,” he explained. “Three years ago, the CVB spent a significant amount of money conducting marketing and branding research, and one of the major conclusions of their report was that the county needed to put a venue at the Gateway.” Allen went on to say that the new center would be 50 percent larger than the Savannah Rapids Pavilion and that it would serve as a more accessible venue for both locals and overnight guests. He said that the facility will primarily be used for conventions, large meetings and other similar types of gatherings. “It’s a huge opportunity to hold community-type events in a larger center,” Allen said. “It’ll be host to a variety of events, and overnight visitors won’t have to travel out of their way to other areas to attend these events.” Although the center will play host to an array of different functions — 10 METROSPIRITAUGUSTA’S INDEPENDENT VOICE SINCE 1989
including gun and knife shows, RV shows, dog shows, weddings, family reunions and more —Trey Allen emphasized that the center has a niche it plans to adhere to. “It’s not designed to be an entertainment venue,” Trey Allen ensured. “It’s much more along the lines off the Tee Center in Richmond County than, say, the Civic Center.” Ron Cross, chairman of the commission, said that although the center will not be as large as the Tee Center, he does feel that requests for a venue capable of accommodating packed events will finally be fulfilled. “The exhibition hall is a concept that our commission thought would be great for a community of our size,” he said. “I believe it will attract a number of regional events. For instance, the National Association of Home Builders can finally hold conferences here, which I think will be excellent for the community.” While the exhibition hall’s intent is to offer a larger venue for companies, organizations and patrons alike, Commissioner Charles Allen said that certain aspects of the project needed to be scaled back to lower costs. “A lot of the time, when you deal with architects, they want to build their own ‘magnum opus,’ if you will,” Allen said. “So, we had to tone down some of the building products and address some storage issues; some of the storage areas were inside and [due to our budget] we had to move them outside. This commission is very centered on trying to do a good job, but at the same time, we’re very budget-conscious.” As the Columbia County Commission manages to be as “budget-conscious” as possible, several detractors from the community — taxpayers in particular — have come forward to express grievances toward the project. One of those grievances revolves around taxpayer dollars; citizens worry that the center may potentially be a waste of their money. However, Allen has debunked that allegation, stating that the center will be built with special-purpose local-option sales tax (SPLOST) money. “There’s always going to be a small group of people who make that argument, and they certainly have the right to do so,” Allen said. “But at the same time, I believe it is important to note that this facility is going to be built with SPLOST money. There’s no property tax money whatsoever involved in that. Also, this ongoing operation and everything surrounding it will generate more SPLOST money as new vendors come in to use the facility; you’ll have overnight visitors staying in surrounding hotels and eating at surrounding restaurants, which will obviously generate more money.” In addition to reaping benefits from SPLOST money, Trey Allen said that a third of the land where the county plans to build its facility will be utilized 7JUNE2012