Convention Center on Target for Fall Opening

Having arranged for 5,000 swimming pool and spa industry officials to hold their 1990 convention in San Diego, Larry Jennings realized that he would be about as popular as algae buildup at next January’s meeting if the city’s new $160-million convention center was not completed by then.

To make sure that he wasn’t getting in over his head, Jennings--whose organization is scheduled to hold the first convention in the still-unfinished center--visited San Diego last week to get a firsthand look at the facility. As a result, Jennings left San Diego reassured that, when the pool and spa dealers arrive here in eight months, they will find a sparkling, completed bayfront building, not something that looks more like the early stages of a giant back-yard pool project.

“There’s always going to be some concern until it’s actually finished, but we feel much more comfortable now that things will be ready in time than we did before we went,” said Jennings, vice president of the Virginia-based National Spa and Pool Institute. “We were worried for a while. But after seeing the progress, we can breathe a little easier.”

Officials of the San Diego Convention Center Corp. and local tourism industry representatives also are breathing easier these days as they witness the steady, weekly progress toward the Oct. 31 target date for the much-postponed opening of the 760,000-square-foot facility.

Confident of Meeting Deadline

Indeed, after weathering a series of frustrating delays and false starts that plagued the project from its inception, the center’s operators now are confident that, barring something truly cataclysmic, the new deadline will be met.

“We’ve reached that exciting stage where the progress is visible almost daily,” said Tom Liegler, general manager of the convention center’s board. “Construction-wise, we’re right on target. Truly, the building is starting to take form.”

James Granby, president of the convention center’s board, added: “Whatever doubts there were in the past . . . I now feel as sure as I possibly can that we’re going to be in the building by November.”

Although roughly 2,000 construction details still must be finished, the facility now is about 84% complete, a figure that will continue to increase by several percentage points monthly through this fall, Liegler said.

Much of the most visible progress in recent months has involved some of the center’s most distinctive architectural features. All but four of its 25 flying buttresses, or “fins,” are complete, and workers have begun testing and stringing cables for a vinyl, tent-like roof meant to evoke images of sails gliding across San Diego Bay.

Soon to Install Skylights

With the building’s exterior largely complete--97% of the 131,000 cubic yards of concrete had been poured as of last week--some of the nearly 340 construction workers will soon begin installing striking light-green skylights. When the skylights are in place, “We’ll be beyond worrying about bad weather being a possible obstacle,” construction manager Billy Crockett said.

In the meantime, other workers have turned their attention to finishing details such as painting, plastering and tiling throughout the building, situated on an 11-acre site on Harbor Drive near Seaport Village.

Even so, construction officials anticipate that some interior work may still be in progress during the “shakedown” period between Nov. 1 and the first major convention in January. During that period, a Thanksgiving weekend “Community Celebration” open house and other so-called “soft opening” events will provide test runs for facets of the center’s operations ranging from parking and traffic control to food service and cleanup.

As he has watched the project meet week-by-week benchmarks that Liegler describes as “the critical path . . . to Oct. 31,” Crockett has become more confident, bolstered by the fact that the building’s stage of completion has consistently exceeded the timetable by several percentage points. As of April 1, for example, 82% of the project has been completed in 78% of the time allotted.

“If everything goes as planned, those two diverging curves will finally come together on Nov. 1,” Crockett said.

Understandably Nervous

Local officials recognize, however, that while their own confidence is growing, many show and convention organizers scheduled to use the center early next year still are understandably nervous over the prospect of unanticipated construction delays further pushing back its opening.

Hoping to alleviate those concerns, the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau (ConVis), which has booked most of the inaugural conventions, has invited officials from the trade associations sponsoring some of those early events to make an all-expenses-paid visit to San Diego for an update on the construction progress.

During the spa and pool group’s visit last week, Jennings said he was comforted to learn that Crockett and his crew “have done plenty of contingency planning for just about any problems that might come up from here on out.”

Even so, Jennings said he has done some contingency planning of his own by lining up an alternative site in another city for his group’s convention in the unlikely event that the worst-case scenario is played out in San Diego. Earlier, occasional reports from some of the organization’s members about the San Diego center’s delays caused the group to consider moving the convention elsewhere.

“We wouldn’t risk showing up if there was any chance the walls wouldn’t be up or something like that,” Jennings said. “We’d cancel long before that. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. They seem very much on top of things.”

No Margin for Error

Liegler and his board members acknowledge that the Oct. 31 deadline leaves them with no margin for error. A delay of even a week or two, they concede, could jeopardize some of the center’s early events--raising the specter of a public-relations nightmare from which it could take years to recover.

Evidence that convention organizers are beginning to share local officials’ confidence, however, can be found in the fact that additional shows continue to be booked for early 1990. With seven events having been added over the past two months, there are now 18 major conventions and shows--which will attract nearly 102,000 registrants--scheduled for next January and February, Liegler said.

Combined with the positive news from Crockett’s monthly construction reports, that demonstration of faith has produced a growing conviction among the center’s operators that the major problems that stalled the project throughout much of the 1980s are largely behind them.

Controversial from the outset, the convention center proposal was rejected by San Diego voters in 1981, but was approved two years later when the site was moved from the city’s center to the harborfront and the San Diego Unified Port District agreed to build it. The city, however, is responsible for any potential operating deficits.

Project Delayed for a Year

Originally targeted for completion in 1987, the project was delayed for a year when construction bids came in more than $20 million over the port’s estimated budget of $101 million to $107 million, prompting the port to seek a second round of bids. The new bids produced a $118-million price tag, which since has risen to $123 million because of minor changes. Including equipment, furnishings and other interior accessories, the overall project will cost about $160 million.

Subsequent construction problems--among them, excavation delays caused by underground water and labor woes in Korea that postponed steel shipments--pushed back the completion date to Oct. 31.

“Once it’s open, all that will be forgotten,” convention center board President Granby predicted. “I’m much less concerned about the center being successful than I am with getting it open and operational. The closer it gets, the more confident I feel.”