All you ever wanted to know about the Music City.

RSS FEED

Metro Shatters Convention Center PR Budget By… A Lot [Nashvillest Polls]

4 August 2009 | 12:15 pm
Author: Christy Frink

n52297878199_1435From the very beginning, plans for the new convention center have been met with a lot of resistance from folks who are concerned about the city taking on such a huge project in the midst of a sour economy. Supporters of the project insist that it’s an investment–we have to spend money to make money. At least part of the funding will come from taxes targeted at tourists to shift the burden off of local taxpayers. But how much is too much? This morning, a reader tipped us off to News Channel 5′s investigative report that made us do a bit of a double-take:

The politically connected firm McNeely, Pigott & Fox agreed to provide public relations services to the Metro Development and Housing Agency, which oversees the convention center project.

According to the original contract, spending was not supposed to exceed $75,000. Months after signing the contract, Metro deleted the “not to exceed” portion.

Now, spending has ballooned to more than $458,000.

The nearly half million dollar price tag has included a positive article in the Tennessean,  help with speeches, keeping an eye on blogs, posting on internet forums, maintaining the website, Facebooking, and Twittering. According to the report, even councilwoman Emily Evans was a little shocked when a reporter showed her the latest figures, saying “If we’re not managing the contracts now, where are we going to be $500 million from now?” With this latest news, we wanted to give our readers the chance to sound off:

What do you think about the proposed convention center?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

  • email
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Tumblr
  • FriendFeed
  • Posterous
  • Ping.fm
  • Print
  • RSS

Related posts:

  1. Bright & Early: Put A Cap On It Edition
  2. Glass Giants: New Public Art Approved For Downtown [Nashvillest Polls]

12 Comments

Posted in News | Tagged , , , ,
  • http://paulnich.blogspot.com Paul Nicholson

    I'm all for the new convention center. We really do need one badly. But it has to be managed better and come in somewhere remotely close to budget.

  • http://nashvillest.com Christy Frink

    Yeah, I'd have to agree with you on that. I understand that it's necessary- Heck, they already had 21 conventions booked as of a few weeks ago, and it hasn't even been fully approved yet. But I'd love to see some evidence that Metro is capable of managing the contracts in a way that doesn't land us at a cost that's six times more than what we planned.

  • Tyler

    worst idea possible for nashville. we need something that will build a stronger community downtown. locally owned shops instead of parking lots and overbudget ugly construction and destruction of the little architectural heritage taht we have left.

  • http://twitter.com/nodethirtythree n33

    Metro is probably more concerned about acquiring the land in SoBro than building a convention center, which may be why they made the unusual move of making that their first priority (probably easier to do with eminent domain?). That way if the convention center idea pans out, great. If not, they can sell off the land to private developers and turn a profit in the process. Either way, SoBro finally gets revitalized and it's an epic win for Metro.

    Or maybe my tinfoil hat is on a bit too tight.

  • http://twitter.com/eskaybe Sarah

    I haven't done much reading on the reasons for wanting a new convention center, but it just seems unncessary. I can't imagine it'll really bring in the revenue it is supposed to.

  • Ryan

    In a city full of creative and smart individuals, you would think one would slip through the doors of city planning and come up with an original idea to draw people to our city, create jobs, stimulate our economy, etc. This has BIG DIG written all over it…

  • http://www.thomasaka.com Thomas

    Why is it all the oversight happens on the little things (like how I'm using a computer that a school wouldn't accept as a donation because the state can't afford new hardware) and never on big things (like paying someone half a million to play around online)?!

  • Jim

    Would help the city, but bad timing to do it. Only upside is it could create jobs to build it?

    Same with health care. Regardless of whether the changes are smart or not, wrong time to change em.

  • http://www.facebook.com/david.rutledge David Rutledge

    I'm in favor of the convention center, but I think the PR spending is a little bit ridiculous. Which, as I see, is exactly what Mr. Nicholson had to say. So I'll stop.

  • me

    I think the better question is, “What do you think about MPF?”

  • Jason

    One thing I am not sure about is the design of the new convention center. I like parts of it.. but I don't want it to cut off sooo much of the street grid. It needs to be built, but it needs to be built in a way that does not restrict pedestrian and auto/transit traffic flow.

    I also hope that any potential historic buildings (Rocketown?) are not torn down, but are incorporated into the new cc or surrounding areas.

  • Visitor