PROVIDENCE – Gov. Daniel J. McKee on Thursday announced that the R.I. Convention Center can reopen for business in August, about 17 months after it was shut down to large-scale events due to the pandemic. He also announced that the state is seeking bids to deconstruct the field hospital that is set up in the center, which was put to use by health officials in late 2020.
It was welcome news to Kristen Adamo, the CEO and president of the Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau, given the tens of millions in lost spending in the state due to canceled meetings and conventions over the past year.
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McKee’s announcement that events will return to the convention center comes a week after he set a goal for the state to have at least 70% of the population get one dose of the vaccine and 70% fully vaccinated by June. Those benchmarks opened the door for large-scale events to incrementally return to the Ocean State.
Adamo said that depending on restrictions and how many people can be in the center, “We can really open the doors and get back to business in September.” She said the PWCVB has about $4 million in direct spending planned for September at full capacity. Even if the spending is only $1 million in September, it’s still a win for Rhode Island regarding conventions and meeting-type events, Adamo said.
“We have not had a $1 million month in a year and a half. It is really a turning point for us and for Providence and Warwick toward the economy,” Adamo said.
Thursday’s news also put a smile on the face of Daniel McConaghy, the former R.I. Department of Administration deputy director who is now three weeks into his role as executive director of the R.I. Convention Center Authority.
While there is “a lot of work ahead” to remove the 550 beds and medical equipment from the convention center, McConaghy said the state is “on a good schedule” to meet the August reopening time.
“[Reopening the convention center] is so integral to the small businesses and others, not just in Providence but throughout the state, and it’s just exciting to think that everyone is working very cooperatively … to prepare for that,” McConaghy said.
The requests for proposals seeking companies to decommission the field hospitals are out now, McConaghy said, asking contractors to reply by the end of April. In the proposal, the state, McConaghy added, is asking the winning contractor to get everything deconstructed and out of the convention center exhibit hall within 22 working days.
With scope reviews and other elements, McConaghy hopes the contractor can mobilize and be on-site by the first week of June to decommission the hospital, he said, with the work being completed by the second week of July.
“August is clearly an opportunity for us,” McConaghy said. Even though there are September events lined up for the convention center, McConaghy said there is an “outside possibility” of conventions coming in for August.
“We don’t have anything nailed down yet,” he said, “but we do have a couple of prospects that we had to initially put on ice because we didn’t think we were going to be open [by then]. But we really hope we can pull that off. I’m pushing like [heck].”
The R.I. Convention Center Authority also operates the state’s largest arena, the Dunkin’ Donuts Center, next door to the convention center. The arena has been used as a mass state COVID-19 testing site and is now being utilized as a vaccine site.
Due to the pandemic, both the Providence Bruins and the Providence College men’s basketball team, regular tenants at the 14,000-seat downtown arena, had to play their 2020-21 home schedules in Marlborough, Mass., and at Alumni Hall on the PC campus, respectively, with no fans attending.
Providence was also scheduled to be a host city for the first and second rounds of the 2021 National Collegiate Athletic Association Men’s Basketball Tournament, with the Dunkin’ Donuts Center being the host venue. However, the NCAA moved the entire 2021 tournament to Indiana and Providence now won’t host the NCAA tournament until 2025.
The withdrawal of the tournament from Rhode Island’s capital city this year meant millions in lost revenue for the state. When Providence hosted the NCAAs in 2016, it brought in approximately $3 million to the state’s economy, according to John Gibbons, executive director of the Rhode Island Sports Commission – a division of the PWCVB.
McConaghy told PBN the Dunkin’ Donuts Center is slated to be a mass vaccine site at least through June. He said there is a “possibility” that the timeframe of the arena being a vaccine site could be extended through a period of July.
But, it is expected that by the end of July, the Dunkin’ Donuts Center will no longer be a mass vaccine site and the arena “will be open for business” by August at the same time as the convention center, McConaghy said. He could not answer if the vaccine site will move from the Dunkin’ Donuts Center to another location as the vaccine distributions are under the R.I. Department of Health’s purview.
McConaghy is also still unsure at this time what the capacity for both events at the convention center and the Dunkin’ Donuts Center will be. He said RIDOH has been “very communicative” with the convention center authority on the trajectory of vaccines and will have a better sense in May on how capacity will look.
The state, particularly in Providence and Warwick, took a big revenue hit in 2020. According to Adamo, direct spending on events organized by PWCVB last year was down more than 75% compared to 2019, resulting in a $56 million loss for Rhode Island. Adamo is projecting that the state will lose $73 million in total through August before the convention center is slated to reopen.
Adamo said meetings, conventions and sports are the foundation of tourism in those two cities and other events, such as WaterFire, are “layered on top of that.”
In an effort to help the local economy and restart events in Rhode Island, PWCVB, along with Johnson & Wales University and Partnership for Rhode Island, launched a new campaign called “Meet in RI.” PWCVB said local corporate community members can pledge to hold at least one meeting, convention or trade show in the Ocean State between 2021 and 2023 as part of this campaign.
Businesses that do pledge to meet in Rhode Island will receive assistance from PWCVB on hotel availability and rates, free-time activities, recommendations for off-site venues and other needs to help with the events.
Adamo predicts that the state’s event economy won’t fully recover from the pandemic until 2024, but hopes the Meet in RI campaign will help in the state’s recover. She also said PWCVB is working with downtown neighborhoods to make sure there is outdoor programming to activate the city.
“Those are the things we’re doing to make up that stop gap [between now and August],” Adamo said.
(UPDATED throughout to include comments from R.I. Convention Center Authority Executive Director Daniel McConaghy.)
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette.
