Last year around this time, Volume One forecast that 2016 would be the Year of the Hotel in the Chippewa Valley. To be honest, the prediction wasn’t a hard one: At that time, five hotel projects were already underway in and around Eau Claire. And last year, all five of the new or reborn hotels opened as planned: The Lismore and The Oxbow downtown; Fairfield Inn & Suites and Staybridge Suites, both off U.S. Highway 53; and the Cobblestone Hotel & Suites in Chippewa Falls.

In total, the new hotels added 412 rooms to the local inventory. Combined with the continuing profusion of attractions in the region – including everything from big new music festivals to a growing restaurant scene to an indoor trampoline park – growth in the number of available hotels rooms seemed to be yet another sign of the impact tourism has on the region’s economy.

However, as is often the case, a few steps forward are followed by a step backward. In June, Marshfield Clinic announced plans to demolish the Plaza Hotel & Suites in Eau Claire and to build a hospital in its place. When the Plaza closed at the end of October, Eau Claire lost 233 hotel rooms. But even worse for the local hospitality economy was the loss of the Plaza’s 28,000 square feet of convention space.

“We are one of the least competitive convention cities of our size in the Upper Midwest by far.”

“We are one of the least competitive convention cities of our size in the Upper Midwest by far,” explained Linda John, executive director of Visit Eau Claire. Even before the Plaza closed, Visit Eau Claire calculated that Eau Claire’s inadequate convention facilities had deprived the local economy of $40 million over five years. Losing the Plaza, the largest meeting facility in the region, certainly didn’t help such statistics. In the wake of that news, “We were working with 13 conventions that were displaced that we were trying to find other homes for,” John said. Most of these conventions ended up relocating to Wausau, Stevens Point, Wisconsin Dells, or elsewhere. “That definitely is a tangible impact,” she noted. The financial ramifications are already measurable: Compared with the same month the prior year, room taxes collected by the city fell 4 percent in November, the month after the Plaza closed its doors.

All of this may be a roundabout way of saying that 2017 may be the year that Eau Claire finally gets serious about building a convention center. It’s a topic that has been discussed locally for literally decades. While the Confluence Project, which is now under construction, may meet some of the community’s needs, it will be a performing arts center – not a convention facility. That gap could be filled by the proposed Sonnentag Event and Recreation Complex, which UW-Eau Claire hopes to build along Menomonie Street with the help of $10 million donation from alumni John and Carolyn Sonnentag. Last summer, in the wake of the Plaza news, Visit Eau Claire and the Blugold Real Estate Foundation, which is affiliated with UWEC, announced they would promote the construction of a hotel (or maybe two) next to the proposed event center. Already, the facility was being envisioned with major events in mind: Plans call for it to be 130,000 square feet with a seating capacity of about 5,000. Now that the Confluence project is under construction and fully funded, expect university and community leaders to begin to devote more attention to planning and fundraising for the Sonnentag Complex in the coming year.

“The silver lining of (the Plaza’s closure) is it brought to the forefront the issue,” John said.

In the short-term, however, expect Eau Claire to continue to fall short of its economic potential when it comes to tourism. John predicted there may be a two- or three-year gap before the community’s convention business bounces back. She said it’s possible that an existing hotel could decide to fill the gap by adding more convention space, although she hasn’t heard any specific plans. In addition, she said the community could pursue a short-term strategy of focusing on attracting smaller gatherings (such as those for 50 to 350 participants) instead of larger ones (in the 500 to 1,200 range).

On the bright side, John noted that the average daily rate collected per Eau Claire hotel room is rising (though the occupancy rate is falling – unsurprising considering there are a lot of new rooms to fill). In particular, she said of The Lakely and The Oxbow, “I think there’s been a pent-up demand for downtown.” Now that the Year of the Hotel is behind us, the hard work of making 2017 the Year the Hotels Were Full lies ahead.

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