Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - It was maybe a bit longer than, at first, expected, but extensive renovations to the Buffalo Convention Center downtown are finally completed.
The $6 million investment was used to completely revamp the outer façade of the Convention Center, as well as include a number of other features to enhance the overall quality of the building, and hopefully attract more people, more conventions and other events to the city in future years.
"I'm happier than I thought I would be with the final product. In the evening when it's dimmer in the night, the lights really showcase the building. It really gives a different presence to the entire building," said Jeff Calkins, general manager of the Buffalo Convention Center along Franklin Street. "As you know before, it was a pretty dull building. But now it really is an exciting look, and most importantly, our clients have realized it. The ones that have kept coming through during the construction here, and now they're coming back and they see the end result, it was well worth going through that aggravation of walking through construction sites the last year. We're extremely happy with it. The results are what we wanted."
"This is truly an exciting day. The improvements at this facility, which is the oldest convention center in the United States, are very important to keeping the meetings and convention business thriving in our community," said Patrick Kaler, President and CEO of Visit Buffalo Niagara. "I call this the big, over $5 million facelift to our convention center. Some might be saying it's a shade of lipstick, it's much more than that. This is a total facelift that is keeping us competitive in the meetings and conventions market."
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While this project was slated to be wrapped up and completed by December of 2022, Calkins did say there some surprises during the project that crews didn't anticipate. Most of the delays were due to supply chain issues with parts and materials that were being utilized for renovations.
"The construction crews were ready, everything was ready, we just had difficulty getting some of the materials that were actually needed, and it's a progression of steps as you build. So if any one stage is stalled, it stalls the rest of the project," Calkins said. "It was just trying to catch up with the supply chain, and eventually it all worked out. But it was working around a lot of speed bumps and a lot of detours to get all our events that were scheduled to actually happen, and flawlessly. Credit to the county and to my staff to make it work, but it did."
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz knew work needed to be done to the Convention Center in order to bring more conventions to the Western New York community. That's why he helped push to invest in the facility, and upgrade the building from it's circa 1979 roots.
"The investments we made, which are less than approximately $10 million in total for all we talked about, are worth it when we talk about the return on investment we are getting from the conventions and businesses that will be coming to our community," said Poloncarz on Tuesday.
While Poloncarz and others like Calkins and Kaler understand Buffalo is likely never going to get the largest conventions, they believe these renovations can help the city compete with other mid-market cities for other conventions and events.
"Once we get people in Buffalo, Buffalo sells itself. It really does," Calkins said. "We've rested our laurels on our guests services and our food and beverage, and really the quality of service that we provide to our clients. What our clients are looking for is something they can be proud of bringing their delegates to Buffalo, and showcasing the downtown area of Buffalo, as well as the building itself. So when they get here, they see the bright lights, the nice façade, the look of the building. It's something they can be proud to bring their delegates to, and our staff, it gives them something to be proud of to sell."
Going into 2023, Visit Buffalo Niagara had a strong calendar for future business and bookings of meetings and conventions in the city. This year alone, through the month of August, the company has hosted 29 site visits for meeting planners, which is up from eight in 2019. Kaler says that is all due to the excitement of what's taking place at the Convention Center right now.
"Of those 29 site visits, so far we have booked 20 of those into actual meetings and conventions that will be coming to our destination. That equates to over 37,000 hotel room nights with an economic impact of over $31 million. Again, that's just January through August of this year. There's still a lot to happen," he said.
Kaler adds some of the business set to be featured at the Buffalo Convention Center in the coming months and years will include existing and new business. This includes the return of the International Snow Symposium - secured for the next three years - as well as the Higher Ed Web conference - making its return for the first time since 2013.
As for the new pieces of business coming to Buffalo and to the Convention Center, this includes the American Cheese Society, the National Confectioners' International Conference, World Canals Conference, as well as the National Indian Educators Association, which will be here in 2026.
"I point this out because this is very significant. [The National Indian Educators Association] is the largest convention that Buffalo will have hosted in over 10 years," Kaler said. "When they did their site visit, everything was under construction. We were up against a major city, but we won it because of what was happening here at the Convention Center, along with our partners with the Seneca Gaming Corporation and our wonderful hotel partners."
The Buffalo Convention Center will also be hosting events in the next couple of years that will bring in other planners to Western New York. In 2024, the city will be hosting the Select Traveler Conference, while in 2025, it will be hosting the Small Market Meetings conference and the African American Travel Conference.
"So again, talking to many different types of audiences who will consider Buffalo to bring their meetings here. And the future just keeps being even brighter and brighter than the panels behind us, as they're illuminated at night," Kaler said.
Just a couple of weeks ago, the Governor's Office announced that Erie County was up to $2.2 billion in the overall travel spend in the region. Kaler says those numbers speak to the overall significance of tourism in the Western New York community, and that was without the return of meetings and conventions to the Convention Center.
So when is the convention business expected to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels of 2019? While it's been a bit of a slow return, Kaler and Calkins expect the industry to be back to 2019 levels and beyond by later 2024 and into 2025.
"We see glimpses of that in the events that we have now," Calkins said. "We've definitely seen an increase in attendance for the specific events that we have year-over-year, people are coming back. We have clients that want to get back to face-to-face meetings, which is, of course, what we want. People that haven't been to the facility yet, when they do come, they like it. They like the environment, they like the community, and they certainly like the proximity to entertainment districts, restaurants, theatre areas. So really, our location, the community and now the appearance of the building really helps sell new events and new clients to the City of Buffalo and to the Convention Center."
In addition, certain groups are not liking the costs they have to incur to do hybrid meetings. Kaler says it adds another layer of technology and equipment that is required, which makes it a little bit cost prohibitive as well.
"That's something we're also seeing at the Convention Center as we continue to work through the recovery of the pandemic. It's just the rising cost of labor, rising costs of food and beverages, and just overhead costs. That's something we are continuing to deal with and we have to incorporate into our overall pricing structure to bring meetings and conventions back to our destination," he said. "But I will stress again, this is not something that's unique to Buffalo. It's happening across the country."
So what changes or improvements remain to be seen with the Buffalo Convention Center in the coming months? First up on the docket is an upgrade of the facility's WiFi.
"We're going to be investing more money over the next year or two to enhance the WiFi," Poloncarz said. "One of the things you often go when you get to a convention center is, 'What's the WiFi password? I want to be able to use the WiFi.' Well, we still need to strengthen the WiFi a little bit, so we're going to be putting more money into the Convention Center to ensure the WiFi is the best it can be."
Kaler adds the internet and technology is an important necessity for conventioneers, and the last upgrade the Convention Center had with the building's WiFi was in 2013 for the last Higher Ed Web conference.
What has also been a struggle and a challenge for the convention business is with hotel packages offered for groups.
"Without having 474 rooms at the Buffalo Grand, that's a challenge for us, because meeting planners don't like to sign multiple contracts," Kaler explained. "As I mentioned, with the National Indian Educators Association, they're having to sign eight contracts with hotels. The other city that they could have gone to, they would have only had to sign two. But because of our complete product and package that we're able to bring to the table, they wanted to come here. But that's an anomaly. That's a problem that we're going to have until this hotel situation is completed."
While plans are in the works to potentially re-open the Buffalo Grand Hotel in the coming future, Kaler points out to ongoing work across the street from the Convention Center that will hopefully make some extra lodging space available for business in the near future.
"What's also great is we're standing right here in front of the Statler, where we can hear work going on. I desperately need those 213 hotel rooms. My sales team definitely needs those 213 hotel rooms to sell for the future," Kaler said. "We're booking things in 2025, '26, '27 and '28. So to know that those rooms will be coming online are so important to us."
More from Tuesday's press conference is available in the player below: