Building off of the TBJ article that @GucciLittlePigposted in the Red Hat Amphitheater thread about expanding the convention center, it seems like the economic case for expanding the Raleigh Convention Center may be hard to make:
I wonder if this means we need to think more about why we want this expansion? I still think the expansion would be helpful for Raleigh and the Triangle. But instead of direct economic benefits, I think it’s more useful to think of it as an investment into our city’s identity, cultural capital, and the visibility of our local businesses. That would make this project more like how we think of investing in public transit for improving density, mobility, and social equity instead of solely obsessing over how to make more profit for the tax base.
Note: the first version of this post omitted the quoted sentence about the expert specifically presenting his finding to Austin’s Downtown Commission, which caused some of the confusion in the following posts. My bad, y’all.