Marketing already started for renovated convention center

Marketing has already begun on a new $75 million Cedar Rapids convention complex, city tourism leaders said Thursday, Jan. 27, even though it's two years away and the first footings haven't been poured.

Renderings of the complex are featured in the 2011 Cedar Rapids area visitors guide being mailed this month by the Cedar Rapids Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. It advertises the projected opening dates of November 2012 for the renovation of the existing U.S. Cellular Center Arena, September 2012 for the renovation of the existing hotel, and February 2013 for 125,000 square feet of new “flex space.”

The bureau is planning a more elaborate marketing piece featuring the center to be released later, CVB President Marilee Fowler said Thursday at a press conference.

Fowler said the bureau has begun marketing the complex even as it continues to work with events previously booked in the U.S. Cellular Center and Crowne Plaza Five Seasons Hotel that will be displaced when they are shut down for construction to make way for the facility.

The marketing will target many groups who've previously held meetings and conventions in other Iowa cities because Cedar Rapids didn't have the amount or type of space they needed, Fowler said. It will also target organizations the bureau is already working with, or have worked with in the past.

The bureau plans to constantly update the organizations on the expansion and improvements of Cedar Rapids meeting facilities, which will surpass convention facilities in Coralville and Dubuque to become the second-largest in Iowa after Des Moines.

Fowler said the bureau usually works with organizations to book events in Cedar Rapids from two to five years before the actual events are held, meaning that it's not too early to start marketing the new facility.

In recent months, the bureau has been forced into the unenviable position of helping groups that booked events over the next two years in the U.S. Cellular Center and Crowne Plaza Five Seasons during the construction period to find other venues. It managed to keep an important 2011 state girls volleyball tournament in Cedar Rapids, but has been unable to keep a state pool tournament and a college wrestling tournament.

The Crowne Plaza Five Seasons Hotel is scheduled to close next month and the U.S. Cellular Center is scheduled to close in August for the renovations.

Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett thanked the bureau for its work on the volleyball tournament. He said the closings create some temporary inconvenience, but that the inconvenience will be more than overshadowed when the new facilities open.