Dallas and St. Louis don’t compare in convention center hotel debate

by Michael Davis of Dallas Progress

A lot of the opponents of the hotel keep saying that the Dallas convention center hotel will fail, and they compare Dallas to St. Louis.

Nobody that reads this blog is dumb enough to believe that St. Louis is comparable to Dallas.

Since a lot of the opponents like stats, let's look at stats from the US Census:

Population Saint Louis: 347,181

Population St. Louis MSA, MO/IL: 2,808,611

*note that St Louis includes both the Missouri and Illinois sides

Population Dallas: 1,232,940

Population Dallas MSA: 4,226,003 (excluding Ft Worth and Arlington)

Population Dallas-Fort Worth MSA: 6,300,006

2007-2008

Population growth of St. Louis Mo/IL metro: 11,245

Population growth of DFW metro: 146,532

So our population growth number is 13 times that of St Louis metro, and we're twice as large on a metro basis and 3.5 times bigger on a city to city comparison.

We haven't begin to compare other factors like the strength of the economy, weather, etc.

Look at the metro stats for yourselves, and ask yourself: how are they comparable again?

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Anonymous

DC, says:

I guess they're somewhat the same since there are a comparable proportion of people in both cities who at some time have had the deluded belief that a convention center hotel was a great idea.

Waste of money. Dying industry. Move on.

Anonymous

7 months, 2 weeks ago
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razorphreak, says:

The St. Louis comparison was stupid since the numbers don't add up. Even when you look at the size of the metro areas, DFW is still far larger and can easily support a larger convention market.

The problem however is the approach. Large conventions have established themselves in cities where spending money is a business within itself. There is a reason why Las Vegas gets the majority of convention business. Dallas cannot compete on that level and the addition of a hotel isn't going to push the city into that market. As it stands, Dallas can't even revive the West End nor Deep Ellum, which would be the best hope to stir up tourist dollars again. The best convention market for Dallas would be political conventions to which this hotel would make obtaining them easier however that cannot justify the costs, especially when it would be the tax payer supporting it.

This is not the right time to look at this hotel. Leppert should be fulfilling his promise of more cops on the streets and should concentrate on cutting spending.

Anonymous

7 months, 2 weeks ago
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alexander troup, says:

St Louis is a dying Midwest City while the Hotel deal is done, Belo will make this work say no and we will confirm yes...double talk is the walk and that is what this all about....Sorry Harlen, Belo played some bad ink on your page yesterday, you deserve better...A/T..Some good old boys cant go fishing in this hole..