Let's put a few shrubs there, or maybe an avant-garde sculpture.
But let's resist building a deluxe hotel next to the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. Recent evidence suggests this might not be the best way to invest tens of millions of tax dollars.
We've heard otherwise, of course, but then we've heard other things about the convention center that have not lived up to the initial hype. Things such as that big billowing steel sheet along the Allegheny River would be a smashing success.
The city-county Sports & Exhibition Authority, which owns and operates the building, has a $1.2 million deficit. Despite the new center, tourism planners have had to offer free meals, theatrical performances and other incentives to lure conventions here.
Now that's successful, no?
Pittsburgh is in a situation similar to many other cities that have upgraded their convention spaces in recent years. Don't take my word for it. Ask Heywood Sanders, a public administration professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
"The differences between the promises made about these facilities and their actual performance often is enormous," he said.
So perhaps we should stop hotel plans percolating since before Mayor Tom Murphy's pledge at the center's April 2000 groundbreaking to have a hotel developer inked within a month. Murphy was off by -- wait, let me check my watch -- nearly four years, and counting.
Earlier this year, Pittsburgh and Allegheny County officials reached an agreement with Cleveland's Forest City Enterprises to build a 500-room, $104 million hotel. The deal was placed on hold when only $21 million in public money could be found for the project.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. There are worse fates than not having a new convention center hotel. Having one springs to mind.
The 1,083-room, $265 million Renaissance Grand Hotel was heralded as the new headquarters hotel for the St. Louis convention trade. Largely publicly financed, the hotel so far is a significant disappointment.
The city last month had to use a federal grant to make a bond payment on the hotel because a special set-aside of taxes generated by the hotel wasn't enough to cover the tab. The hotel was opened in February, and management already has announced plans to try to make it less dependent on convention business.
Sanders isn't surprised. He said cities that overestimate the drawing power of their convention space often believe adding hotel space nearby will correct the problem. It doesn't always work.
"If the promises regarding these buildings turn out to be remarkably flawed and thin, if not downright deceptive, you often don't find that out until later," Sanders said. "Then you're faced with trying to make something that doesn't work work."
Be thankful that could never happen here.
