Latest news with #MassachusettsConventionCenterAuthority
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
After another record year at the MassMutual Center, Springfield's convention promoters look forward to more visitors
SPRINGFIELD — Rental and catering revenue at the MassMutual Convention Center increased by 17.7% year-over-year, the third straight year of growth, the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority said Thursday. Total food and beverage revenue at the center also hit a new high in the fiscal year that ended in June, up more than 9% from the previous year, the authority said in a news release without giving dollar figures for either. The convention center — not counting the arena — alone hosted more than 100 events and more than 100,000 attendees, according to the release. The regional economic impact was an estimated $56.7 million, including both the Convention Center and Arena. The arena is home of the American Hockey League's Springfield Thunderbirds. Growth is a sign that not only is the convention business recovering from a post-COVID doldrums but that meeting planners are choosing Springfield, said Alicia Szenda, vice president of sales for the Greater Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau. COVID shut down conventions for years. Then, meeting organizers and convention bureaus spent the next few years rebooking those canceled conventions, scheduling them after the interruption so as not to lose the business. 'We are not 100% beyond that, but we are close,' Szenda said. Mary Kay Wydra, president of the Greater Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau, said conventions have changed. There are shorter stays with fewer visitors. Budgets are tighter. Greater Springfield has been successful at drawing events, she said. That includes the 2025 Massachusetts Governor's Conference on Travel and Tourism back in March. The conference — focused this year on events and sites associated with the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution — was a chance for the Pioneer Valley to show off for tourism professionals across the state. And in the coming weeks, the MassMutual Center is set to host a toy show geared to retailers, a trade show for locksmiths and a military reunion. Fall is normally a busy time of year. The convention center and arena still bear the name of insurance giant MassMutual under an agreement that expired in 2023. But the Convention Center Authority has said it is in the process of selecting a new naming rights sponsor. The new $80 million replacement Civic Center Carpark opened this spring. Stories by Jim Kinney Empresario busca impulsar la participación del electorado latino Demolition to begin at vacant Mary Lane Hospital campus in Ware 'I see people holding back,' but retailers hope for tax-free boost this weekend Read the original article on MassLive. Solve the daily Crossword
Boston Globe
09-07-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
‘Menino Center' honors the mayor who willed the Southie convention hall into existence
Championing a new convention center was the biggest bet of Menino's historic 20-year tenure as mayor, one he wagered in his first term and double-downed on until he left office in 2014. It was a bold move because Menino was a political underdog back then, locked in a fight for the ages against then-Governor Bill Weld and New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft who initially insisted on building a megaplex (a convention center/stadium) and later a standalone football stadium on what was then a little-used sea of asphalt and warehouses. It would become a defining battle for the new mayor, one that would transform not only Boston's real estate landscape but also become his legacy. Had Menino lost, the Advertisement 'I used to say to him I think of this as the Menino Center because it would be his legacy,' recalled Gloria Larson, who served as the chair of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority when the Southie facility was being built. 'We were on time, on budget through minor miracles that occurred along the way. It all ended up working out, but many people doubted that. He never doubted that.' Advertisement The groundbreaking of the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center in 2000. RYAN, David L Globe Staff Menino got his way by winning over neighboring South Boston and its politicians, including Congressman Joe Moakley, City Council President Jim Kelly, and then-state Senator Stephen Lynch. The secret to Menino's political success? He knew which levers to pull. No way would South Boston support a stadium, but they could live with a convention center. Menino also needed buy-in from the Legislature, because the state would need to pony up about $700 million to construct a facility with 2.1 million square feet of exhibition and meeting space. In classic Menino fashion, he went on a road trip to drum up statewide support, courting leaders in Springfield and Worcester to get behind his big bill, which also included money to renovate or expand aging convention centers in their cities. In the fall of 1997, the three Tom's got the job done on Beacon Hill: Menino, of course, along with Senate president Tom Birmingham and House Speaker Tom Finneran. What about Weld? The Republican had resigned earlier that year in hopes of becoming the US ambassador to Mexico. (His nomination never made it out of the More drama would ensue. The city of Boston would need to assemble land for the convention center, largely by eminent domain. There were hundreds of public meetings with South Boston residents, and the staff of what was known back then as the Boston Redevelopment Authority got an earful. Advertisement At the same time, the agency, first under the leadership of Tom O'Brien and later under chief planner Kairos Shen, put together a master plan to turn what was then a wasteland of parking lots and light industry into another Back Bay with office buildings, restaurants, shops, and condos. Menino saw the convention center as the catalyst for all that development, and the BRA felt empowered to make it happen. 'We were still like these young kids, 'yeah, let's go make this convention center!'' recalled O'Brien, who is now one of the city's biggest developers, while Shen returned to City Hall last fall to oversee planning under Mayor Michelle Wu. There was also intense political pressure to keep the center on time and on budget, especially given the ongoing delays and cost overruns of the Big Dig in those years. And while Cellucci didn't give Menino much trouble, his successor, Mitt Romney, would. On more than one occasion, even after construction was underway, Romney threatened to kill the project, which fiscal conservatives viewed as a boondoggle, a white elephant that would sit empty most of the time. Mayor Thomas Menino, Gloria Larson, and then-Governor Mitt Romney joined Blue Man Group to celebrate the opening of the BCEC in 2004. Tlumacki, John Globe Staff There were other tense moments, like a year after breaking ground on the center, the convention center board had to replace the project's director of construction because members worried he couldn't keep it on budget. Larson knew the project needed leaders who could navigate a political and fiscal tightrope. That led her to Jim Rooney, who was at the time Menino's chief of staff. She knew it would be a tough sell, and sure enough, Menino gave her an earful. Advertisement 'I had to hold the phone out across the room. He was so angry at me,' said Larson, who served as economic secretary under Weld and later the president of Bentley University. But Menino understood. Giving up his right-hand man to work on the convention center would ensure its success. He made the deal. 'You can do this,' Menino told Larson. 'But basically, you owe me for life.' Rooney would eventually run the convention center authority through the rest of the construction of the BCEC and its opening in June 2004; he left in 2015 to become the CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. Even after the convention center opened, Menino, at Rooney's behest, would fly to other cities to pitch meeting planners considering whether to bring their conventions to Boston. The efforts paid off, in the form of confabs with tens of thousands of attendees, gatherings that otherwise would have bypassed Boston from the 2004 Democratic National Convention to the 'He was all in,' observed Rooney, who, along with Larson, will be speaking at Saturday's renaming ceremony. And by the time 'If you asked him, some of the things that he's most proud of, the convention center would be on the list,' Rooney said. 'So to have it named after him is fitting.' Advertisement Through it all, Menino pushed for the convention center not so much that he wanted it to be the main attraction but rather a catalyst on the waterfront. 'It's because of his clarity about what that vision should be that has allowed us to put the convention center at the edge of Summer Street,' said Shen, 'and then as a backdrop to all of this private development.' To Menino supporters and administration alumni, July 12 holds special significance. It was on that day in 1993 that Menino, then City Council president, became acting mayor after Ray Flynn left to become the ambassador to the Vatican. And every year while he was mayor, Menino would hold a This year, following the speeches and tributes, there will be one more block party, this time at the convention center's Lawn on D, to celebrate Menino and the new neighborhood he helped build. And like the one in Hyde Park, all are invited. Mayor Thomas Menino toured the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center when it opened in 2004. Knott, Janet Globe Staff Shirley Leung is a Business columnist. She can be reached at
