Fargo approves December 5th special election for Fargodome expansion, remodel

[TAILG8R]

Forum Editorial: Keep Fargo at the head of the pack and vote yes to expand and improve the Fargodome

[AlumniGreen]

Forum Editorial: Keep Fargo at the head of the pack and vote yes to expand and improve the Fargodome

Thank you. Common sense prevails. VOTE YES.

[HerdBot]

Forum Editorial: Keep Fargo at the head of the pack and vote yes to expand and improve the Fargodome

Cool to see an endorsement from the Forum but it's too quiet on the Bison front. C'mon Kolpack and Izzo... as Lales would say ,"pump it up!"

[HerdBot]

I am aware of park and school district being separate, but the fundraising is behind schedule as the "large gift" has not come through. As for the school district. City of Fargo, School district have had a history of helping each other out. Scheels Arena comes to mind and the school district came on board to prop up.

Realistically how many times are you and your family going to use the new park district facility? West Fargo at the Rustad Center is open to all that want to use it. Volleyball, Pickleball, Basketball, indoor turf. That place never seems overhelmed. You want to swim West Fargo has a swimming site.

Does it help with ice? Sure during the peak times, so kids might not have to have 530 am or 10pm practices. But ice exists.

So nothing new is being added to the FM community that doesn't already exist. And as always there will be a cost.

F

They dont make the payment all at once so they don't need all the money upfront.

I'll use the Sports Complex daily in the cold months because I dont want to walk in sub zero weather. We have an obesity problem here in case you didnt notice

My kids are in all sort of sports and activities. Our family travels for youth sports and if saves me 1 trip per year, I'm happy

Also you need facilities in different parts of town. I'm not going to drive 20 minutes across town. Plus we need to accomadate growth

[AlumniGreen]

I think that is the second Forum editorial endorsing the project. There was one a few months ago. The Forum's endorsement is excellent as it is usually filled with common sense and never too extreme. I love the phrase, something to the effect, most consumers won't even notice the small tax. Good one.

[AlumniGreen]

Charlie Johnson from the CVB said we have lost out on 200 plus conventions in the last 7 years. How many would have actually come to town? 10%, even 20% that is 6 conventions a year. Just because they inquired to come to Fargo doesn't mean they will come. Scheduling conflicts may not have the facility available, groups and organizations may not want to come to Fargo due to locations. So the idea that it going to generate a large influx of activity in my opinion is a misnomer.

But time will tell.

Your critical thinking skills are good but lacking this component. Yes, I agree with you that just because a convention organizer inquires to the Fargo CVB does not mean that if we DID have the space (which of course we do not), that they would necessarily come here but your guesstimate that only 10% or 20% would end up coming here if we had the space is pretty pessimistic. I am not an insider at the CVB but they probably had a pretty good feel for the intent of the inquiring conventions and who knows what the feedback was when they were told "no"? I think Charlie is a straight shooter, (a former highly respected anchorman) and may have gotten feedback of disappointment that Fargo could not accommodate their needs. Also Fargo CVB may very well have been their first call and the first on their wish list. We don't know the whole story but Charlie and the CVB people DO. I know that CVB has skin in the game (obviously) but I think we need a true convention center. If the other towns (Sioux Falls, Bismarck and others) are hopping with conventions as we have heard, then we could as well. Also its close proximity to the DOME could be even more of an enticer to convention seekers.

[kab1one]

Your critical thinking skills are good but lacking this component. Yes, I agree with you that just because a convention organizer inquires to the Fargo CVB does not mean that if we DID have the space (which of course we do not), that they would necessarily come here but your guesstimate that only 10% or 20% would end up coming here if we had the space is pretty pessimistic. I am not an insider at the CVB but they probably had a pretty good feel for the intent of the inquiring conventions and who knows what the feedback was when they were told "no"? I think Charlie is a straight shooter, (a former highly respected anchorman) and may have gotten feedback of disappointment that Fargo could not accommodate their needs. Also Fargo CVB may very well have been their first call and the first on their wish list. We don't know the whole story but Charlie and the CVB people DO. I know that CVB has skin in the game (obviously) but I think we need a true convention center. If the other towns (Sioux Falls, Bismarck and others) are hopping with conventions as we have heard, then we could as well. Also its close proximity to the DOME could be even more of an enticer to convention seekers.

Interesting question nonetheless as I know in my business we track sales opportunity versus closing deals. Of the conventions that inquire about Fargo for conventions that WE HAVE current facilities, what is the close rate? What is the industry standard? Again, probably viewed as a negative, but I would think the convention business is fairly competitive, and they are held in certain parts of the year (Spring, Fall). Then raises a question, just from a curiousity standpoint, how quickly are you at capacity during the peak periods and how much of the year does it sit vacant?

[AlumniGreen]

Interesting question nonetheless as I know in my business we track sales opportunity versus closing deals. Of the conventions that inquire about Fargo for conventions that WE HAVE current facilities, what is the close rate? What is the industry standard? Again, probably viewed as a negative, but I would think the convention business is fairly competitive, and they are held in certain parts of the year (Spring, Fall). Then raises a question, just from a curiousity standpoint, how quickly are you at capacity during the peak periods and how much of the year does it sit vacant?

I rarely know the background of a poster but you obviously know your stuff. Thank you.

[HerdBot]

Interesting question nonetheless as I know in my business we track sales opportunity versus closing deals. Of the conventions that inquire about Fargo for conventions that WE HAVE current facilities, what is the close rate? What is the industry standard? Again, probably viewed as a negative, but I would think the convention business is fairly competitive, and they are held in certain parts of the year (Spring, Fall). Then raises a question, just from a curiousity standpoint, how quickly are you at capacity during the peak periods and how much of the year does it sit vacant?

The #1 tourism industry for Fargo right now is youth sports and things like adult softball and baseball tournaments. In Bismarck, it's conventions and their convention center is booked 300 days a year.

The Convention Center wont compete with the private industry because we dont have any convention space to host huge events, so the hotels don't get any room revenue. When conventions are booked, they will get that traffic. The hotels that own convention centers use it as a way to fill the hotel rooms. The business model isnt to make all their profits from conventions. It's the multi night hotel stays. But a majority of their business is from small events, like weddings. Nobody is going to have a wedding at the Fargodome

But the concention center is more than conventions. It's all events from trade shows to concerts

[IndyBison]

Indy is a big convention town at a higher tier than Fargo. The central location, great airport, abs walkable distances downtown make it desirable. We don't have the beautiful weather, sandy beaches, mountain views, casinos. But we have great restaurants and hotels all within walking distance (many via sky bridges and tunnels). It's corrected to Lucas Oil Stadium via a tunnel.

They hold some massive conventions with 60-70k people. Gen Con, Comic Con and a bunch of events like that attract a ton of people. Huge car shows, all the fan festivals for the major sporting events (B1G football championship this weekend), NFL Combine, massive volleyball tournaments. It seems there is always something going on.

They tore down the RCA Dome and built Lucas Oil to expand the convention center 15 years ago. We are still losing consideration for some conventions so they are getting ready to do another expansion that also includes an 800-room hotel!

I would think the Fargo people are aware of what they have to offer and what the convention market is like. It's a decent sized city with a good food scene. It's not the greatest for airports (especially cost), but it has frequent service from multiple airlines. It may host more regional conventions that national, but it makes sense the could be a good market for it. It would be nice to be waking distance to downtown food and hotels, but it's not that far away. A very quick Uber out shuttle ride.

Seems like a no-brainer to me, but I've lived in a city that had benefited from building a big convention model for economic development.

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