[ON LOCATION] LISA SIMUNDSON
Already an established center for sports, entertainment and the arts, Cincinnati is raising the stakes on that trifecta with plans to completely renovate its convention center by 2025 while at the same time making it the centerpiece of a complete convention district that will include a headquarter hotel.
Prevue attended the groundbreaking—a “wall breaking” actually—of the old Duke Energy Convention Center (DECC), which took place July 16, 2024 with local, county and state officials on hand to watch the first tiles fall and the center start its transformation to a work zone before emerging in late 2025 as a $240 million rebuild.
There was some discussion beforehand about keeping the DECC open during the renovation, but that idea was nixed in favor of the more direct and ultimately faster approach of working straight through to ’25. In the meantime, the city’s convention business will be funneled to the nearby Sharonville Convention Center and, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, the Northern Kentucky Convention Center.
“We embrace moments of necessary change,” said Jeff Berding, Visit Cincy Board Vice Chairperson, addressing the crowd. “This change will increase the quality and enhance the caliber of our conventions and trade shows. We don’t want to just hold against peer cities, we want to exceed them.”
Already accepting bookings for 2026 and beyond, the new DECC will boast:
• An outdoor square, Elm Street Plaza, which will connect to programmable park space.
• Energy-efficient exhibit and meeting space incorporating the latest in sustainable technology.
• Revitalized ballrooms offering elegant, flexible event space.
• A sunlit pre-function area for gathering and networking.
• A rooftop terrace offering sweeping Cincy views and additional space for special events.
With the new convention center as its focal point, further plans call for an entire convention district to be built around it, including a headquarter hotel due in 2027, connected to the center via skybridge.
“When complete, there will be $48 million in new business,” noted Julie Calvert, President and CEO of Visit Cincy during the event. “A healthy convention district means growth, and a convention season that can be year-round.”
Part of that expansion in new business is sports and association business, says Andy Conklin, Executive VP, Sales & Marketing, for Visit Cincy. “Sports is a major sector for us, and we’re looking at establishing a separate sports commission. We also rely on association business all year long, to fill in during the holidays and off-peak times.”
Along with Visit Cincy’s focus on increasing business in the coming convention district, four years ago, the bureau partnered with its neighbor, Northern Kentucky—connected to downtown Cincinnati via the historic John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge—by creating the combined marketing brand Cincy Region to promote each other’s venues, hotels and attractions.
Among the many meeting and offsite venues on the Cincy side are the TQL Stadium, home of the city’s Major League Soccer team and offering more than 10 indoor and outdoor event spaces along with a full-service event management team; and the Cincinnati Music Hall, once the city’s original convention center and now home to the Cincinnati Ballet, Opera and Symphony.
Meeting properties include the Hyatt Regency Cincinnati, set across from the DECC and boasting 40,000 sf of meeting space. And there are group gathering spots galore here, from Vista at Lytle Park with its sweeping views of the downtown cityscape to Ghost Baby, a lounge and bar set four stories underground in tunnels that kept beer cool more than 150 years ago.
visitcincy.com/meetings