But the CFA is not quite ready to take over the reins, said Joe Parlette, a Dayton deputy city manager.
“There’s a whole lot of work that still needs to take place to get the CFA fully stood up and completely functioning on its own,” he said. “It was honestly really slow going at the very beginning, which is understandable.”
But Parlette said he expects a transfer of ownership by the end of the year.
The new authority is an 11-member board formed in November between the city of Dayton and Montgomery County, which approved the creation of the board and authorized it to collect an additional 3% in lodging taxes in an effort to keep the convention center afloat.
The Dayton Convention Center, built in 1973 at a cost of $6 million, has 150,000 square feet of floor space and 77,000 square feet of exhibit space. The facility makes Dayton the only large or mid-sized Ohio city to own a convention center. It has operated at a loss since 2012.
Studies by a consultant and a local task force in recent years concluded the convention center’s last hope for revival was for the city to turn it over to a CFA that could put more lodging tax revenue toward building improvements. The reports indicated the facility required $15.2 million to $28 million in upgrades.
“The city, mid pandemic, facing fiscal crisis in 2021 and a recession, there’s no way we could have made an investment in the convention center,” Parlette said. “This action supported by Montgomery County enables — in a normal world — a stable reliable funding stream that will enable reinvestment in facility.”
Walter Reynolds, a Dayton attorney, was elected chairman of the CFA by board members during a May meeting. Clayton Mayor Mike Stevens was named vice-chair and Elizabeth Connor, director of communications at the National Aviation Heritage Alliance, was elected secretary.
Repeated phone calls and email messages to Reynolds for this story were not returned.
Other members of the CFA board include David Abney II, Greg Brush, Jeff Gore, Belinda Kenley, Jacquelyn Powell, C. LaShea Smith, Kevin Wekesser and Thomas Whelley.
The group did not select a treasurer but voted in a subsequent meeting to hire Sean Fraunfelter as interim fiscal officer. The authority will pay Fraunfelter $100 hourly not to exceed $10,000 in a 12-month period without board approval, according to meeting records.
Search for a leader
The next step — and one that will determine how quickly the facility changes hands — is the hiring of an executive director for the CFA, Parlette said.
“That individual, whenever they’re formally brought on, will really begin a lot of the planning and organizational work that will enable the transition,” he said.
A new leader may be hired as early as next month with a mission to revive the Dayton Convention Center, according to board members.
The authority received 32 applicants. A screening for minimum qualifications narrowed the list to 11 of which five applicants were selected for online interviews. The top two or three will be brought in for in-person interviews, Connor said during the authority’s September meeting.
A subcommittee planned interviews with five candidates via Zoom beginning earlier this week, Connor said.
“We have great candidates. We think a couple of them for sure can hit the ground running,” she said. “We have been very lucky and the search produced really good results.”
The five candidates the subcommittee selected for initial interviews are:
- David Bevans, senior director, Trade Shows & Event Services of International Market Centers/AmericasMart, Atlanta, Ga.
- John Capobianco, general manager of Museums of Illustration/The Society of Illustrators, New York, N.Y.
- Kenton Curtis Jr., operations and sales management for city of Dayton
- Pam Plageman, president/COO of PLP Hospitality Solutions, LLC, Hebron, Ky.
- Tim Seeberg, general manager and director of Fort Smith Convention Center and Arc Best Performing Arts Center, Fort Smith, Ark.
The job posting for the executive director’s position carried a salary range of $106,000 to $143,000 annually.
Lodging tax may rise
It remains unclear how quickly after an executive director is hired that the board might use its ability to increase the county’s lodging tax.
Parlette said he doesn’t “have a crystal ball," but the CFA was formed “understanding that the goal was to reinvest in the facility in a substantial way.”
Generally in Ohio, jurisdictions levy a 3% hotel/motel tax while the county collects another 3% for a maximum 6%. But language added to a 2019 state budget bill allowed county commissioners to pass a resolution to create a convention facilities authority — but only if done between July and December of 2019 — that allows the collection of an additional 3%.
If the new CFA exercises its authority, lodging taxes in Montgomery County would total 9%. If residents object to the new tax, they can subject it to a referendum vote.
In December 2018, a 24-member Dayton Convention Task Force found a 3% increase would generate about $3 million more a year for the Dayton Convention Center.
The 3% countywide lodging tax collected by Montgomery County averaged about $3.25 million annually over the previous five years before the pandemic, according to county’s Office of Management and Budget. Of the county’s total, 30% goes to support cultural facilities including Courthouse Square and Memorial Hall and funds the Great Miami Riverway Placemaking Initiative. The remaining 70% funds the Dayton Convention & Visitors Bureau.
Montgomery County has agreed to provide the CFA with $600,000 initially and the city of Dayton has pledged all its lodging tax revenue to the authority through 2060. Lodging tax revenue for Dayton averaged about $805,000 for 2018 and 2019, but receipts are down more than half so far this year due to the pandemic, city records show.
Though the convention center has been shuttered through the coroanvirus pandemic, Powell, president and CEO of the Dayton Convention & Visitors Bureau and a convention facilities authority board member, said planning continues for when the pandemic is over.
“We certainly hope this CFA will be able to put our community in a position to have a first-class convention center facility, to be able to go out and promote and to bring successful events which result in positive economic impact to the local community,” she said. “With the coronavirus right now, obviously there are a limited number of events that are taking place and they’re smaller and smaller. But we are also pursuing events ... in some cases for several years out.”
Dayton Convention Center by the numbers
150,000
Square feet of floor space
77,000
Square feet of exhibit space
$6 million
Construction cost of the facility opened in 1973
$28 million
Cost of renovations recommended by a consultant in 2015
$3 million
Projected revenue a new 3% lodging tax would generate annually
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