Thursday, July 17, 2008

No New Convention Center Bookings During June; Authority's $25 million investment with MBIA safe

No new opening-year Convention Center bookings were made during the month of June, its Director of Sales & Marketing said Thursday.

Nevertheless, Josh Nowak remains optimistic that the Center will be able to meet its goals for 2009.

13 events have been booked for 2009, reflecting $183,600 in revenue. This amount is 36.3% of the $506,077 Interstate Hotels & Resorts anticipates the Center will generate in 2o09.

Nowak said that when prospective bookings are added to the definite ones, the likely revenue generated so far is more like $312,000.

In other business, finance committee chair Laura Douglas confirmed that MBIA, Inc. did indeed collateralize on the Authority's $25 million investment by the July 7th deadline. So the Authority did not have to withdraw its money. More details will be reported at LCCCA's Finance & Audit Committee meeting on Monday, July 28th.