Centers Redeveloped into Offices, Church

Instead of hosting tradeshows and consumer shows, the Fort Washington (Pa.) Expo Center and Charlotte (N.C.) Merchandise Mart will soon be converted into office space and a Baptist church campus.

The Fort Washington building will be replaced in mid-June by an office building to house General Motors Acceptance. Local officials hope to find another venue by early fall to accommodate the 22 major shows it now hosts each year.

In Charlotte, the University Park Baptist Church is buying the mart from D.L. Phillips, which has owned and operated the venue since its 1962 opening. The deal could close by the end of next month, said Edna Chirico, a commercial real estate broker representing the mart and its development group, Lockhard-Reed.

The New Jersey real estate firm that owns the Fort Washington building is selling it, leaving Expo Center General Manager Ken Safarowic, Montgomery County Industrial Development and the Valley Forge Convention & Visitors Bureau scrambling to find another venue for their customers.

Safarowic is assembling a management company to establish a new exposition center business and reportedly several clients have promised to remain with him.

"I've a tremendously capable staff I want to keep at work, and the business has an extremely loyal customer base whose transition into a new space we hope to make as seamless as possible," Safarowic said.

With 260,000 square feet of exhibit space, the Expo Center generated an annual local economic impact of more than $175 million, said CVB President Paul Decker.

The loss of the venue's business would be "devastating to Montgomery County and its 19,300 hospitality employees, and the more than 500 hospitality companies my organization represents," Decker said. "We'll work 24/7 and with whomever we need to, all the way up to Gov. (Ed) Rendell, to keep that business here, and I think we can."

The venue's most lucrative show, the semiannual Philadelphia Gift Show, was scheduled to next take place July 23–26. Show management firm Urban Expositions has yet to announce where the show will relocate. Each edition of the gift show pumped more than $20 million into the region's economy, according to Decker.

The former Honeywell manufacturing plant, privately owned and operated as a convention center since 1993, is expected to be demolished or taken down to the steel frame.

The CVB also markets another privately owned and operated facility. The Valley Forge Convention Center in King of Prussia, Pa., offers 130,433 sq. ft. of exhibit space and is connected to the Radisson Hotel Valley Forge and Scanticon Hotel and Conference Center.

Because it had outgrown the Expo Center, Stanley Expositions & Conferences last year moved its semiannual Stanley KOP at Fort Washington shows (nos. 125 and 126 on the Tradeshow Week 200 for its August and January editions, respectively) to the Atlantic City (N.J.) Convention Center. The shows, now named Stanley Atlantic City, took place at the Expo Center and the Valley Forge center for more than a dozen years.

The PANTS Trade Show also recently moved to the Atlantic City center. It last took place at the Fort Washington Expo Center in 2005.

The Charlotte mart has an agreement with the church to use the mart buildings for two years while its new location is constructed. D.L. Phillips plans to build a new mart adjacent to the Catawba River in a joint venture with the city and Mecklenburg County, N.C., Chirico said.

Along with a 250,000 sq. ft. exhibit hall, the new mart location, called the River Center, will also include an environmental education center, 300 condominiums, a 200-room hotel, 120,000 sq. ft. of retail space, a park and a dock for water taxi rides to the U.S. Natl. Whitewater Center that opens this spring.

The current mart has 224,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space and 320,000 sq. ft. of permanent gift and jewelry showroom space. It is home to more than 72 tradeshows and events each year.

Rodney Talley, the venue's sales and marketing director, said that despite the changes, the mart's business will remain vital for Charlotte. The center's events contribute more than $250 million in economic impact, Talley said. "So, our business isn't going away."