One recent evening, Metro officials were beaming after the release of a report highlighting the economic impact of the agency's visitor-driven venues.
Among the findings – the Oregon Convention Center, which had a net operating loss of $8.3 million in 2010, generated $526 million in spending in the Portland region, and $19 million in tax revenue for the state, Metro and the three counties.
It's in contrast to just a few years ago, when concerns about not realizing the full potential of the convention center led officials from Metro, Portland and Multnomah County to push for development of a new hotel near the center. The project was estimated to cost about $150 million.
The project, long thought dead, reappeared last week in the form of a $3.2 million line item in the Portland Development Commission's 2011-12 budget, apparently at the request of Mayor Sam Adams.
It wasn't a typo.
"What the mayor wants us to do is look into whether or not there are opportunities – not for a headquarters hotel, but a convention center hotel near the convention center," said Keith Witcosky, the Portland Development Commission's government relations manager. "He (Adams) wants to see whether there's any possibility of that idea moving forward. It would be smaller scale, and doesn't require the county to give up the visitor resources."
Metro Council President Tom Hughes said he's had conversations with Adams and Multnomah County Chair Jeff Cogen about reviving the hotel. The reason, Hughes said, is the lack of "national" conventions held at the convention center.
Last year, 44 such conventions, which bring in guests from across the country, were held at the convention center.
According to Travel Oregon, 22 potential convention hosts, with a combined 41,000 attendees, specifically said they weren't coming to Portland for their convention because of a lack of a headquarters hotel. Another 17, with more than 17,000 attendees, cited similar reasons, like the lack of a hotel "under one roof" with a convention center, the quality of hotels nearby or the lack of meeting space in hotels.
In total, according to Travel Oregon, the Portland area lost nearly 120,000 nights of hotel room bookings, and the Oregon Convention Center lost $5.2 million in revenue.
Conventioneers love taking MAX from the airport to their hotel to their convention. But convention hosts?
"They hate it," Hughes said, "because they've got to schlep their stuff from wherever their hotel is. So if you're more than across the street away, they see that as a disadvantage."
But aren't there already hotels in the immediate vicinity?
"It's got to be nicer than the Red Lion, nicer than the Inn at the Convention Center," the new Metro Council president said. "They have to be decent hotels."
The $5.2 million in lost revenue is just the direct cost to the convention center. Hughes looks to his eight years as the mayor of Hillsboro for another reason to try to attract more conventions to Portland.
"It's hard to get a hotel room in Hillsboro on Monday through Friday," Hughes said. "On Saturday and Sunday, you could get any hotel room you wanted because people come to town for business and leave for the weekend."
If more national conventions are held in Portland, Hughes said, some attendees would stay for the weekend because they don't get to Oregon very often.
"Then you can begin to market the opportunities that exist in Washington County and Clackamas County for tourism," he said.
Hughes' scenario conjures up images of visitors touring the vineyards of the Tualatin Valley or skiing at Mount Hood. But lobbyist Len Bergstein, who's represented Portland-area hoteliers in opposing a headquarters hotel, had a decidedly less rosy view.
"It seems like we're in the middle of a vampire movie, with shadows and people smiling and clicking their long teeth," Bergstein said. "Nobody's talked about it an explained it in a way that doesn't suck a tremendous amount of public money."
Bergstein said the concept isn't bad. But the financing mechanism – using public money to pay for the hotel – gives him pause.
"It may be a terrific investment of a private entrepreneurial project that would be at the right size. We've talked about 400 to 500 rooms, with the possibility of phasing it up with a second tower or something like that – when the marketplace determines it," Bergstein said. "People thought they wanted a project that was so oversized it couldn't make it in the real world."
Hughes' involvement gives Bergstein some comfort – "Having him in the middle of talking about it will give everybody some confidence that it will be a smart project as opposed to something somebody's going to try and jam through, regardless of market realities," Bergstein said – but he emphasized that the private sector should take the lead on the project.
Lew Bowers, the Portland Development Commission's Central City Project Manager, said the public financing model has worked in other cities.
"Headquarters hotels, as a unique sort of real estate product, don't pencil, whereas some more traditional hotels with less amenities do pencil," he said. "It's a unique project to serve a particular market which has certain amenities that the industry is telling us they need."
It's a model that's been used extensively nationwide. Houston's 1,200-room convention center Hilton cost $326 million, and is paid for in part by a city-wide room tax. A sports facilities tax helps pay for Phoenix' 1,000-room convention center Sheraton. And dozens of cities, including Houston and Phoenix, issued municipal bonds to subsidize the construction of the hotel.
By comparison, the entire Lloyd District has 1,700 hotel rooms. Oregon's largest hotel, the Portland Hilton, has 782 rooms.
According to a 2009 report from Swerdling and Associates, hotel brands for headquarters hotel projects also included Hyatt, Westin and Renaissance. A 2004 report from HVS International showed only one brand that has a presence in the Lloyd District – Bay City, Mich., has a 160-room Doubletree as its headquarters hotel.
So what about that $3.2 million in this year's PDC budget?
Bowers said the commission's staff will continue feasibility studies, working to develop a plan that is "economically viable." If a headquarters hotel can't be built, he said, it could be possible to upgrade existing hotels near the convention center. The last option would be to continue working on improving the area around the convention center, without sprucing up the area's hotel space.
For Hughes, the most important part is that the conversation has restarted.
"I think we need to have moved somewhere," Hughes said. "I don't know what the solution is. I just mentioned that I think it's time we begin to look at it."
Disclosure – The reporter is a volunteer member of a Portland Development Commission subcommittee. The subcommittee focuses on Lents and is unrelated to the PDC's work near the Convention Center.
Clarification 2-24: An earlier version of this story said the project would cost taxpayers $150 million. Earlier visions of the project had government sources providing the initial funding, which would be paid back by the hotel operator and through room taxes in the region.