The Connecticut Convention Center, the anchor exhibition-hall showpiece of downtown Hartford’s Adriaen’s Landing development that also includes Front Street, had better attendance and revenues — and a lower taxpayer subsidy — in fiscal 2014, its operator says.
The Capital Region Development Authority’s 2014 annual report says the facility overlooking I-91 and the riverfront generated $4.3 million in revenues in the 12 months ended June 30. CRDA had budgeted revenue at $4 million.
A year earlier, the nine-year-old facility housing 205,000 square feet of exhibition, ballroom and meeting space, plus a 2,339-slot garage, posted $3.4 million from space rentals and food and beverage sales, among other event services, from 186 events that drew 373,000 visitors, the report said.
Meantime, the sum of sales, use, income, room-occupancy and other taxes generated from convention-center attendance also rose in fiscal 2014, to $6.7 million vs. $5.5 million in fiscal 2013, a snowy period that ate heavily into that year’s attendance.
Unfortunately, those collected taxes went into one state pocket to be disbursed from another. After subtracting operating expenses, debt service and other overhead, the convention center had negative net operating income of $4.4 million — a hole that taxpayers again filled with a state appropriation subsidy. However, the subsidy was less than in previous years because revenue was greater, CRDA CEO Michael Freimuth said.
CRDA maintains the convention center is less a profit center than a catalyst for fruitful economic activity for the city and region.
– Gregory Seay
