DATE: Monday, May 26, 1997                  TAG: 9705260032

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MEREDITH COHN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   92 lines

BILLIARDS TOURNAMENT READY TO HELP BREAK IN NEW CHESAPEAKE CENTER FACILITY IS FORECAST TO BE GOOD FOR THE CITY'S ECONOMY.

The Chesapeake Conference Center, about three months from opening, already has booked several events and plans to open to the sound of clacking cue balls from the 22nd annual U.S. Open Nine Ball Tournament in September.

Several meetings, parties and shows have been scheduled at the center, but first in line is the tournament, described by its sponsor as the longest-running and most prestigious professional billiards tournament in the nation. It's expected to draw 128 professional pool players, 700 amateurs and thousands of fans. It also will reach a national television audience.

The tournament, held in Chesapeake for five years before moving to Virginia Beach last year for a larger venue, will demonstrate the power the center will have in producing local shoppers, overnight hotel guests and restaurant diners, said William L. Lindley, the center's manager.

Lindley warned, however, that those economic benefits will be long-term and not immediately measurable. Despite some early local interest in renting the center, the first year is not likely to produce its best results, he said.

``The conference center by itself has never been proposed as a profit center,'' Lindley said.

``Waterside projected a major loss and so did Nauticus,'' he said of two Norfolk attractions. ``You have to look at other impacts such as hotels filled and out-of-towners shopping in local stores. Typically, 10 percent of what out-of-town visitors spend goes to retail. You have to look at the total economic impact, and we'll be tracking hotel room and meal taxes.''

Lindley is under pressure to make the conference center a success. In addition to spending taxpayer dollars on the facility at the same time the city is projecting a budget shortfall, some controversy was created by how the facility was developed.

The project was advertised only locally in newspapers and through some e-mail messages, and bids were open for less than a month. An official with the Chesapeake-based Armada/Hoffler Holding Co., the only builder to bid on the project, provided informal advice to the city before the bidding process and later won the contract.

There weren't enough parking spaces at the site to meet city requirements, but the City Council granted an exemption, citing other nearby parking.

To help pay for the project, the local hotel occupancy tax was raised 1 percentage point to 6 percent and the meal tax was raised to 5.5 percent from 5 percent.

Under a 30-year lease with Armada/Hoffler, the city will pay nearly $881,000 a year. The city will have the option to buy the conference center. Within the first year, the center would cost about $9 million. That price would decrease every year thereafter.

Lindley said for the first year or 18 months a large portion of events will be local. The center's staff, which consists of three people but may eventually number 10, will focus on drawing military functions, weddings and high school proms in addition to other events that are too large for other Chesapeake facilities and can be held during the weekends when other locations have reported slow business. By the third year, Lindley estimates the center would be at 70 percent capacity.

The 51,000-square-foot center will offer nine meeting and banquet rooms including a 20,000-square-foot ballroom that can seat 1,600 for a seated banquet or 2,500 for a meeting. It's within walking distance of hotel rooms in Greenbrier, a section of the city where retail shopping and restaurants have boomed in recent years.

Booked already are about a half a dozen larger events, including the United Way Ball, a bridal fair, tool and woodworking shows, and Christmas parties for employees of Armada/Hoffler and Chesapeake General Hospital. But Lindley said he and a new sales person had to slow down their solicitation effort to wait for a new reservation system to go on line.

To raise awareness about the opening, the center will likely mail fliers to households with their water bills and Lindley plans displays in Chesapeake Square Mall and Greenbrier Mall.

Lindley also confirmed that in at least one case, the city may provide financial aid to event sponsors coming to Chesapeake. Lindley plans to meet with Barry Behrman, the billiards tournament sponsor, this week to discuss help the city may provide for production.

``There has not been a dollar commitment,'' Lindley said. ``He has had the tournament before in the city and, in the past, the city has helped on production costs. It's premature to say what we'll do this year, and every group will have to be looked at separately. This type of thing would be the exception rather than the rule.''

Behrman, who operates Q-Master billiards parlors in Norfolk and Virginia Beach, said he wanted to return to Chesapeake and moved the tournament to Virginia Beach only because of space. The Holiday Inn in Chesapeake, where the tournament was held in previous years, has a 7,000-square-foot capacity, about one-third the size of the conference center's ballroom.

``Chesapeake really rolls out the red carpet,'' Behrman said. ``And it's centrally located - 10 minutes from everywhere. Now that there's a convention center there, I'm never leaving the city again.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

The Chesapeake Conference Center will feature a 20,000-square-foot

ballroom when it is completed in a few months. KEYWORDS: CHESAPEAKE CONFERENCE CENTER

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