In a press conference Wednesday, Lubbock County Expo Center chairman Randy Jordan confirmed the center nonprofit is moving forward with the project in North Lubbock.
In 2018, voters approved a Hotel Occupancy Tax increase to fund the project. Since 2019, Jordan says the HOT has accrued about $14 million, according to the county auditor's office.
The original estimated cost of the project in 2020 was $60 million, but now with inflation and increased construction costs, Jordan said those plans are now more than $95 million.
“What we had to do is take a step back and look at all the circumstances that have affected all of us over the last five to six years, and come up and get a plan that is viable, affordable and workable,” he said. “And we feel that we've done that.”
So what is that plan?
To meet the budget of $67 million, along with funding from HOT and private donors, Jordan said the current proposal is to bond another $32 million, with approval from Lubbock County voters.
“County bonds 32, we take 10 of that 14, put that together,” Jordan said. “With our cash on hand, with our pledges, with our interim financing, we've got 25, we get to the 67 [million dollars].”
Jordan said rather than generating profit on its own, the economic impact will be in how it brings visitors into Lubbock, shopping, eating, buying gas, and staying at hotels.
“We never said the Expo Center is going to be an income producer,” he said. “We've always said it's going to be break even. More than likely it's going to lose money. Honestly, I'm just going to be frank with you, most of them do.”
The current proposal, Jordan explained, is more similar to that of the Taylor County Expo Arena in Abilene, which finished construction in 2019 and would cost $55 million today.
With that vision in mind, Jordan believes North Lubbock is the best space for the Expo Center, despite conversation between the city and county to merge the project with renovations to the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center downtown.
Lubbock County Commissioners saw a feasibility presentation last month that outlined two potential options.
The study is the result of communications between city and county leaders about the need for a multipurpose arena in Lubbock County and the need for renovations at the Civic Center as a part of downtown Lubbock redevelopment.
You can read a detailed breakdown of the report from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal here.
In his presentation to county commissioners on Oct. 14, Tyler Othen, the director of Conventions Sports and Leisure International, explained the developments that could make Lubbock competitive.
The study looked at 90 event center facilities around the country and comparable markets in other Texas cities, but Othen said the most important step involved 70 interviews with organizers behind 300 events, covering conventions, concerts, and sports.
“Many of these conversations were an hour long, so about 70 hours, individual hours, learning about what the take is on Lubbock, how often would they bring events here, and what event facilities do they need to bring their events here,” Othen said.
The study identified a “strong demand” for rodeo and motor sports events in the Lubbock area since Lubbock’s ABC Rodeo moved to the Mallet Event Center in Levelland and the Lubbock Municipal Coliseum was demolished in 2019.
“The gap of the Coliseum is most apparent for these two sectors, especially with ABC Rodeo needing a home,” Othen said.
The Coliseum was also the home of the professional ice hockey team, the Lubbock Cotton Kings, from 1999 to 2007. Othen said they spoke to every minor hockey league as part of the study.
“The two smaller leagues expressed interest in Lubbock,” Othen said. “While the larger leagues, those that generate more revenue, didn't see opportunity unless somebody spent millions and millions on starting a team here.”
Othen pointed out that Lubbock shows “untapped potential” as a hub city in several event areas. When compared to other Texas cities, Othen said Lubbock ranked lower in terms of event hosting because of a lack of hotels, dated buildings, and not enough to do downtown.
“When we consider that we're only hosting nine or ten conventions a year, and we compare us to all these other buildings around the country, we're probably well short of what the potential could be,” Othen said.
The study suggested renovations to downtown Lubbock and expansions to the Civic Center, including a larger, updated ballroom space and a new headquarter hotel within walking distance. The study also highlighted the need for a mid-sized multipurpose arena, with the ability to support dirt-floor events like rodeo and livestock shows.
Where the two needs of the city and the county overlapped, Othen said the first suggestion would be to meet both with a combined facility that adds a 60,000-square-foot event center with dirt floor capabilities to the current Civic Center, and converts the Civic Center’s exhibit hall to a larger ballroom with all new lighting and acoustics.
“We actually combine projects and simply integrate a new Multi-Purpose Event Center/arena concept onto the Civic Center," Othen said. "Where it'd be shared management, a joint campus, all in one complex option."
Othen described the combined facility as a more cost-efficient project that would require alterations to the current Expo Center plans. The alternative suggestion was to simply keep the two projects separate, which Othen said could have its own benefits.
“There's higher economic impact with two big separate projects,” Othen said. “But there's potentially significant cost savings from one combined project, as well as ongoing operational savings, from one combined project at the Civic Center site.”
The Expo Center nonprofit has opted to propose keeping its project separate, but the next steps on meeting Lubbock’s needs are in the hands of city and county leaders.
“Think about the logistics of taking 129,000 square feet and putting that on an eight-acre track in Downtown Lubbock,” LCEC chairman Randy Jordan said in Wednesday's press conference. “Think about egress and regress. Think about parking, and then let's just all do this: sit back and use a little common sense. Does it work? And it did not. The expo center does not work for downtown.”
While the City of Lubbock has expressed interest in combining its efforts, Lubbock’s mayor Mark McBrayer told KTTZ earlier this month that he has stepped back to allow the county to make its own decision.
“There's a county project, there's a city project,” McBrayer explained. “The county's got to make their decisions, the city's got to make our decisions; so we're prepared to move forward making the important decisions on ours.”
McBrayer said the city is taking its own steps on Civic Center renovations, and he looks forward to the county project moving forward as well.
Jordan thanked the city and the downtown redevelopment group for their willingness to collaborate, but maintains that the best place for the Expo Center, as he sees it, is North University.
Jordan said the project has been a long time in the making, but that is not uncommon for large-scale projects in the county.
“Any major project in Lubbock, Texas in the past 20 years has taken a while to get done,” he said. “From the first time it was talked about, the Overton Hotel took over 15 years to come to fruition. Buddy Holly Hall, 11-12 years. Go back and look at the United Supermarkets Arena, two failed votes before it ever really got moving.”
The Expo Center’s nonprofit board is expected to present its plan to the project’s Local Government Corporation, or LGC, today for recommendation to the Commissioners’ Court.
“We would love to see that to be on the agenda for the next Commissioners Court in November,” Jordan said. “There still are things to work out. There's things that we've still got to do, but again, just getting that first step taken, look at this plan.”
Jordan said the center will bring the ABC Rodeo back to Lubbock and host concerts, motocross, monster truck shows, livestock events, and more.
If the plan is approved Thursday, Jordan said “It will no longer be a dream, but it can become a reality.”