With the 2024 American Quilters Society QuiltWeek about nine months away, the Convention Center Corporation Board briefly talked Tuesday about the 2025 contract with AQS for hosting the annual quilt show, and also on the roof repairs at the Paducah-McCracken County Convention & Expo Center.
Joe Romano, executive vice president and chief operating officer for VenuWorks, joined Tuesday’s meeting remotely. The management firm is negotiating the AQS contract for 2025 on behalf of the board, but board members plan to meet in small groups to discuss the contract.
“Now, I’ve asked Joe to prepare a list of issues or concerns that he has with the contract,” board chair Mark Whitlow said. “I do not want to share that publicly, but I would be happy to meet with you individually or no more than two at a time to share those concerns and get your input.”
According to Whitlow, he can not meet with more than two members at a time because a meeting of four members constitutes a quorum, which must be open to the public.
At the meeting, McCracken County Commissioner Bill Bartleman highlighted the importance of the AQS negotiations, asking Romano, “You’ve taken into consideration the importance of the event for the community, right?” He stressed his belief that contract negotiations with AQS should be approached differently than one might normally approach a business contract.
Convention Center executive director Michelle Campbell said after the meeting that they didn’t currently have more details about the center’s next contract with AQS.
“They’re just now starting to look at what we currently have, what needs to be changed, what works, what doesn’t work,” she said.
She also confirmed that the center loses revenue on the quilt show each year. She hopes changes in the contract ensure it can at least break-even.
“We appreciate the economic impact that the show has. We don’t want to hinder that. We definitely want to keep the show here. We want it to grow and be vibrant,” she said, noting that a lot had changed since the last contract was written.
She expects the biggest hurdle in negotiations to be the large dome pavilion, the fabric of which is “past its life expectancy.” According to Campbell, they will either need to replace it or construct a building in its place.
“That can has been kicked down the road for years and years and now it’s going to be to a point where we’re going to have to figure something out,” she said.
The dome isn’t the only thing reaching the end of its lifespan. In April, following discussions between the city and county about funding convention center roof repairs, the county set aside funds from the transient room tax for the repair project.
On Thursday, Bartleman will attend a meeting with an architect and others to go over plans on moving forward with roof repairs. Campbell said one of the factors complicating the job is the reconstruction of deteriorated glass skylights.
“It’s a lot of moving parts and a lot of people involved,” she said.
Other topics of discussion at Tuesday’s meeting included plans to upgrade the center’s point of sale system in hopes of reducing customer wait time; attracting larger meetings to the center; creating a transportation system to shuttle visitors back-and-forth between the center and local hotels; and the impact the City Block project may have on the center’s parking lot.
