Lost Opportunities
The State of Connecticut incorporates a number of different investment strategies to boost the state’s economy.
Take the Connecticut Development Authority’s recent $4 million loan to FuelCell Energy, a company that recently reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it is unlikely to make a profit. And if it does, it probably won’t sustain that profit.
Or consider the state’s $15 million grant to help the nonprofit Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art to renovate its landmark Hartford building.
Then there’s the nearly $270 million state-funded Connecticut Convention Center.
The notion of funding private, nonprofit and state-run facilities is simple: the state maintains that these investments will boost the state’s economy.
Now, nearly three years after the convention center opened, an increasing number of conventions and tourist events are being booked – including return events – at the convention center. It’s a sign of success.
But here’s where the state dropped the ball.
It allowed the FLW Outdoor Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League All-American Tournament to get away. That’s not only a shame; it’s fiscally foolish because the tournament generated more than $2.5 million for the region’s economy through hotels, transportation, restaurants and other miscellaneous tourist expenditures.
The reason for the loss is stunning. The convention center and other tourism nonprofits working to bring the tournament back to the city were unable to come up with the $75,000 site fee required by the tournament organizer.
In fact, the various groups — including the Capital City Economic Development Agency and Riverfront Recapture — engaged in the effort to bring FLW back to Hartford could only scrounge up $25,000 altogether.
It doesn’t take a finance genius to figure out that a $2.5 million return on a $75,000 investment would have been a low-risk and sound use of state money.
Considering the modest site fee that was required, it’s astounding that the tournament slipped away to Arkansas in the same week that the governor’s office announced that the state surplus grew by more than $163 million in one month.
While the state throws millions of dollars at private and nonprofit organizations in the name of economic development, it is foolish that a funding mechanism to support the convention center’s efforts to attract major events has not been established.
With a tentative promise made in 2006 by FLW to return to Hartford in 2008, there was plenty of time to establish a fund to provide the money needed for FLW’s required site fee.
Although too late to lure FLW back to Hartford this year, tourism officials must quickly establish a funding mechanism before the region loses another major tournament event.
For all the talk and money committed to revitalizing Hartford, public and private stakeholders should not have allowed this. Nor should they let it happen again.
WBJ Web Partners
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