The City of Fort Worth and the Fort Worth Convention and Visitors Bureau engaged the Hunden Strategic Partners' team to conduct a market and financial analysis related to the future potential expansion and renovation of the Fort Worth Convention Center, as well as the possible development of a new arena and repurposing the existing arena at the facility. 

Key Findings

  • The market has responded extremely positively to the expansions and improvements in Fort Worth's convention package over the past 10 - 12 years. The downtown market has a good quality reputation for most properties and excellent performance levels. These levels are so strong that several new hotels are under consideration in the downtown area, near the convention center.
  • Fort Worth's downtown has enhanced its reputation as a fun, walkable city with a variety of restaurants and leisure time activities.
  • The FWCC has some significant challenges in quality and logistics that have locked it into a business plateau.
  • The downtown hotel market suffers from the episodic nature of the convention business, which has plagued many convention markets. When a convention is in town, hotels are generally full and rates are "compressed" upward. However, during the lag time between conventions, hotels are left to fill the gaps with other in-house meetings business and the normal transient business.
  • The walkable hotel package, despite its vast improvement over the past decade, is still too small to be competitive for either mid-sized conventions or simultaneous smaller conventions.
  • Fort Worth's hotel package will grow, but if not managed strategically in tandem with convention industry professionals, the market could end up with many small new hotels instead of one or two large, compelling, event-inducing properties.