ANAHEIM’S MAKEOVER BEGINS : Business Community Is Big on Expanding Center
Much of Anaheim’s business community Tuesday applauded the city’s plan to spend $150 million to double the size of the Anaheim Convention Center and $250 million more to improve the cityscape surrounding Disneyland.
In interviews, business people praised the plan to expand the city’s convention hall, turning it into a nearly two-million-square-foot magnet for conventioneers from across the nation.
“There is absolutely no downside,” said Bill O’Connell, chairman of the Anaheim-Orange County Visitor and Convention Bureau. “It is nothing but good news. It will enable us to not only attract larger conventions, but we can have two or three going on at the same time.”
The convention business, coupled with tourists attracted by Disneyland, has been a mainstay of the city’s economy. The convention center alone sustains some 16,000 area jobs, according to convention center figures.
Cathi Dutton, spokeswoman for the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce, said that “most business-people are excited as can be with the potential.”
She lauded the foresight of city leaders and echoed several other business leaders in saying the $250 million being spent by the city to rebuild streets, landscape the area and make other infrastructure improvements around Disneyland is essential.
She, O’Connell and others said improvements to the 30-year-old convention facility and its neighborhood are a must.
“Anaheim has needed a face lift for years,” she said. “If we are going to be competitive in the tourism and convention business, we have to update our look. The customers have been telling us for several years what they want and need. We have to pay attention to this or they can choose other destinations. There are certainly many more destinations to choose from than in 1966 when the Convention Center opened.”
One of the few dissents came from a community group that has been fighting City Hall’s support for the expansion of Disneyland since 1987.
Steve White, a member of Homeowners Maintaining Their Environment, or HOME, was among those who unsuccessfully sued the city of Anaheim in 1993 to halt Disney’s ambitious, $3-billion Westcot project, which fell victim to the recession of the early 1990s.
White, an Anaheim real estate agent, criticized the financing mechanism for the current plan, which would see the city issue $400 million in bonds, to be repaid with 3 percentage points of the city’s 15% hotel occupancy tax, increased sales tax revenue from tourists, and property tax generated within the Disneyland Resort.
“It provides these yahoos downtown the ability to borrow,” White said. “If this were to support a library or streets citywide, we wouldn’t have an objection. But this is corporate welfare and that is our objection.”
But his was a lonely voice.
Bruno Serato, who owns The White House restaurant, an upscale eatery two miles north of the Convention Center, called the announcement “the most exciting news I have heard in Anaheim in a long time.”
“We do need it,” he said. “Without convention business, we would not be able to survive. Local business is good and convention business is outstanding.”
At Millie’s Country Kitchen, manager Lil Palmer gave her assessment: “The Convention Center seems to . . . [be] losing bigger conventions to downtown Los Angeles. They want to pull business here.”
Palmer, who has managed the restaurant for two years, said conventions can boost her business 50%. “This is an off-year for conventions,” she said. “Most traveling to Anaheim this year happens to be by tourists.”
O’Connell said Anaheim’s chief competitors for West Coast conventions are San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. In addition to expanding Anaheim’s facility, he said, it is important to upgrade it to meet the demand for more meeting rooms as opposed to wide-open exhibit space.
“It used to be you went to a convention and there were a lot of booths showcasing products. But the big thing now is that every industry is concentrating on education, and that demands meeting space,” said O’Connell, who is also general manager of the city’s four Best Western hotels.
Paul Kott, who runs a commercial and residential real estate office in the city, said “the synergy” of the professional ball teams, a second gate at Disney and a bigger Convention Center “will be really good for Anaheim” and the real estate business. “People are creatures of comfort and convenience and like to live near where they work,” he said.
Former Mayor Jack Dutton, 86, served from 1962 to 1974 on the city councils that “came up with the idea to build” Anaheim Stadium and the Convention Center. “I am the last survivor of that council,” he said. “Now that [these improvements] are going to happen, what I say is, ‘Thank heavens.’ ”
Dutton dismissed critics of the plan.
“Naysayers are typically people who are not successful and want to knock those who are,” he said. “It is to be expected, but it is sad we have to have that.”
