The idea that the proposed water park will also be a convention center is a bad joke that is being played at the expense of the public.
The plans presented to the city detail a convention facility of 10,000 square feet.
By way of comparison our downtown convention center features 133,000 square feet.
A football field is 48,000 square feet. This center would fit within the first 20 yards.
Tradeshowexecutive.com ranks convention centers into four tiers with tier IV being the smallest. They consider the minimum size of a tier IV center to be 50,000 square feet.
It is hard to imagine that the Texas comptroller will consider this facility to be a convention center and so, according to the terms the city has offered the developer, the taxpayers of El Paso will have to pay the developer $40 million.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
I have gone to one of these for a business conference in the Midwest. They are basically a conference center not a convention center. In short, small off-site meetings, sales meetings, small training events or small association meetings. Our lack of corporate headquarters and the fact that they are simultaneously putting the same hotel in Scottsdale suggests the only folks using this conference center will be our local taxing entities. So we’ll be paying twice.
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10,000 sq. ft. is similar in size to a small gun show, a doll show, antique show, or . . . . EXACTLY the same size as the El Paso El Maida Shriner’s Temple Hall.
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The old. . . Rodeway Inn, meeting hall, across the street from Bassett Center, where they had small doll and antique shows and coin shows was 6,000 sq. ft.
(Now torn down and new hotel there. . .)
10,000 sq. ft. would be for CATERING large weddings.
And if Wolf Lodge does CATERING they will be getting about $40-50.+ per seat which includes CATERING.
Lots of profit when the hall is rented for a CATERING contract and wedding.
10,000 sq. ft. Small concerts, has-been bands, (used to be famous) in the 1970’s-80’s.
Could be used for small Comic-Cons and tattoo shows and take that FROM the El Paso County Coliseum rentals.
They could work that hall and make a steady stream of profit.
(While getting kick-backs and payoff’s from the city and whoever else they can squeeze.)
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If the city is giving concessions and kick-backs and payoff’s so the “poor Investors” of Wolf Lodge can reap 14-15% profit, then the CITY needs to include a contract that says. . . The City will Keep ALL PROFITS past a 15% profit for their participation in this venture to reimburse the citizens of El Paso,
It’s only fair, since the City (and property tax payers) are investing a great deal.
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The worst part of this fiasco is that it illustrates the disregard that City Government has for the citizens of El Paso. The people running the City are bald faced liars, and they think that we’re too stupid to notice. We should sharpen out pitchforks.
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One immediate question…did the esteemed “leaders” in City and County not bother to learn anything about convention centers – or did they know and not care? Who in GWL drew up this plan and what relationship does s/he have with the crew that unanimously approved this sack of garbage?
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I think the short answer to that is who benefits from the land swap? Connect the dots.
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The sad thing is that in the best case scenario we spend over $100 million to create 348 mostly low skilled jobs. Imagine if these incentives were going to an employer who actually created 1000s of jobs. The money we are spending for chain recreational crap doesn’t make sense.
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If you go to the Wolf website, they use the words “conference center” to describe their meeting facilities at other locations. So why are they trying to run a convention center scam on us? This is another reason why the State of Texas is going to refuse the $40,000,000 in state funding that Wolf and the city are asking for. You and I are going to end up paying that $40,000,000 if this deal goes forward.
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Just more lies, deception from, Margo, Silly Council and the Society of Corruption.
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If Wolf is built, (and it will be because we’re covering so much of their cost) they will have a good first season because it’s new and local kids will beg to go so parents will waste money to spend the night at a local hotel. There will be high fives all around at city hall. Gonzalez will move on to a better job. After the first season, when the new has worn off, Wolf will not do well. We will be paying for this long after Wolf has gone out of business, but they will own the property. Half of city council that made this decision unilaterally without public input will also be out of office.
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Your crystal ball has morphed into a black ebonite orb!
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