The promise of an expanded Albert B. Sabin Cincinnati Convention Center is great: It will attract more conventions and trade shows, which will bring in more tourists who will spend millions in the region's hotels, restaurants and shops.

        It's a promise that has been repeated in scores of cities around the country.

        And it's a promise rarely kept, according to an economist who studies the economic ripples from those expansions.

EXPANSION PLAN

Cost: $160 million    Timetable: Construction start in 2004, end in 2006    Project: Increase exhibit space from 162,000 square feet to 194,000; meeting space from 42,000 square feet to 57,500; ballroom from 30,000 to 40,000.    How pay for it:    County raises bed tax from 3 percent to 6.5 percent    City raises bed tax from 3 percent to 4 percent    City pays $1 million a year for 30 years    Corporate equity fund loans $10 million    Corporate equity fund contributes $10 million    Naming rights: $10 million    State of Ohio: $20 million    Greater Cincinnati Convention & Visitor's Bureau: $1 million a year for 10 years.    Hamilton County: $500,000 a year for 30 years    Expansion: Sept. 30 deadline looms

        Politicians from Cincinnati and Hamilton County have until Sept. 30 to decide whether to proceed with a $160 million expansion of the downtown convention center. County commissioners begin the discussion on today. For the project to advance, City Council and commissioners must increase the tax paid when renting a hotel or motel room in Hamilton County. They must also agree to spend tens of millions of tax dollars and hope that tens of millions more will materialize from the state government and a corporation willing to buy naming rights.

        The consulting firm Convention, Sports & Leisure International (CSL) says an expanded center will allow Cincinnati to compete for 75 percent of the conventions and trade shows held in the United States every year.

        Those extra events would add $122 million to the economy. An expanded center would mean an extra $6 million a year in taxes for the city, state and county, plus 1,850 new jobs that would create an additional $50 million in new paychecks, the report says.

        Heywood Sanders, an economist and chairman of the Department of Public Administration at the University of Texas at San Antonio, isn't impressed by the report.

        “Everybody's got one,” said Mr. Sanders, who has studied economic impact reports prepared for 36 cities, from Anaheim, Calif., to Washington, D.C. “Some cities have three or four. The tougher the politics, the more studies you need.”

        Cincinnati has a drawer full.

        The city first started talking about expanding the center three years after the 1987 expansion, which rang up $9 million in overruns, took a year longer than expected to complete and cost the city $800,000 to settle a lawsuit over construction delays.

        Since then, PricewaterhouseCoopers and CSL have produced a handful of reports, all stating the need for an expanded center. Mr. Sanders says he has yet to read a report from any consultant recommending against expansion for any city.

        “At some point, a reasonable, independent observer is going to ask the question: Is it equally plausible that each of these cities will succeed,” Mr. Sanders said. “Consultants said it in Charlotte, which didn't succeed. Then the city hired the same consultants who said, "there isn't enough parking and hotel rooms, so subsidize a new hotel.' Construction is under way.”

Industry competitive, volatile

        Convention space nationwide has increased from 40.4 million square feet in 1990 to 53.7 million in 2001. An additional 16 million square feet is forecast to be completed in the next five years.

        Tradeshow Week, the bible of the industry, says trade show attendance hit a high-water mark of 140 million in 1999. Since then, it has fallen to 126 million in 2000 and dropped to 116 million last year.

        Michael Hughes, director of research for Tradeshow Week, said it will take something special to reverse the trend.

        “It's no secret the convention center industry is becoming more competitive. It is likely that booking activity will become more volatile. There will be more ups and downs,” Mr. Hughes said.

        Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken said he believes an expanded center will work in Cincinnati. He said the current facility is too small and antiquated for the city to compete for the best conventions and trade shows.

        “There is a concern,” Mr. Luken said. “But we have two choices. We can do nothing, and we know what that result will be, or we can do this modest expansion and anticipate getting a piece of the tourism market. I'm convinced Plan B is more viable.”

        There have been a variety of expansion ideas, and schemes to pay for them. One expansion plan would have cost $325 million and built the center over Interstate 75.

        A scaled-back, $198 million version of the plan was unveiled in January by Mayor Luken and Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune. After an epic struggle to win a new Ohio law that allows the county to raise its bed tax above 3 percent, the deal fell apart when Delta Air Lines declined to buy the naming rights.

        The new plan would expand the center's exhibit space by about 20 percent, allows the business community pushing for the expansion to invest $10 million instead of $16 million and calls for the city and county to borrow $10 million from a corporate equity fund. City and county officials have only until Sept. 30 to pass higher taxes, which are crucial for the expansion to happen.

The biggest gamble

        The law allows the county's bed tax to rise to 6.5 percent. It also gives the city authority to raise its bed tax from 3 percent to 4 percent. The result, after adding on the 6-percent sales tax, will be a tax of 16.5 percent in the city and 15.5 percent in most parts of the county. And it's a move that will leave Hamilton County surrounded by lower tax rates in Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio counties to the north and east.

        That is the biggest gamble of all, said Robert A. Baade, professor of economics at Lake Forest College in Illinois. He said city and county government will have to make debt service payments from their general funds if there isn't enough revenue from hotel taxes to cover the expense.

        Mr. Baade points to New York City, which had a bed tax of over 18 percent before reducing it after deciding the high tax was costing them business. If 18 percent is too high in New York, 16.5 percent is probably too high in Cincinnati, Mr. Baade said.

        Mr. Portune seems ready to take the risk.

        “Basically, it's an investment in the tourism trade in Cincinnati,” Mr. Portune said. “The bigger risk is not to do it.”

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