LANSING – Leaders of the Detroit Auto Dealers Association, which stages the North American International Auto Show in Detroit each January, told the Michigan House Commerce Committee on Tuesday that growing the show in the future can be helped by tying directly into the high-tech auto industry, which could lead to similar events each year.
DADA also expressed hope Cobo Center could be expanded to provide more space for future auto exhibits.
DADA told the committee it could use the state?s help to pay for rising security costs at the show. Doug Fox, president of Ann Arbor Automotive and secretary-treasurer of DADA, responding to a question by Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Zeeland), chair of the Commerce Committee, said the association has tripled security costs over the past 10 years.
Rod Alberts, DADA executive director, said he did not come to Lansing looking for that kind of support and noted the organization is still working to increase the awareness of the impact the auto show has on the Detroit region.
In a video presentation to the committee, DADA said the show contributes about $580 million to the region’s economy each year, or about double the impact expected from the 2006 Super Bowl.
An expanded Cobo Convention Center or a new convention center is a necessary next step, Alberts said, as he discussed plans by the association to continue to grow the auto show.
“We need to protect it by growing the show and allowing Cobo Center or a convention center to grow,” he said. “We are going to need assistance and help to make sure the show will be vivacious and grow.”
The major impediment to moving ahead on a Cobo expansion – which Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick set as a goal in 2004 – has been financing and the lack of regional consensus on supporting the project. A regional hotel tax is still being used to pay off bonds from the last expansion project.
Regional cooperation has not yet been achieved. Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson has opposed more taxes to pay for an expanded Cobo Center and pushed instead for proposals by private investors to build a new convention center. Alberts said the state may have to step in and provide leadership on the issue. “I’m not so sure there this needs to be from the state down,” he said, but added progress is being made.
Fox met recently with Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who agrees there is need for the show to expand, he said. Another 50,000-60,000 square feet would take care of space needs for the next three years, but Alberts said the show needs a display space with 300,000 more square feet, or about 1 million square feet in total. Estimated costs of expansion are at least $700 million and a new 1.1 million square foot center downtown would cost an estimated $1 billion. A plan was floated recently to relocate the city’s three casinos and a new convention center at the State Fairgrounds at the northern edge of Detroit, near Oakland County.
Alberts and Fox also suggested Cobo could benefit from a new emphasis on the automotive high tech industry that is dominant in southeast Michigan, which could spur a number of “niche conventions” each year. “If we shift directions and make more use of high-tech and tie that in to Cobo, it could be a way to turn the city around and bring jobs to the city,” he said.
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