UNCW meeting center could rival city’s convention center

WILMINGTON — A new hotel and conference center is in the works at UNCW. The problem is the proposed center with an attached hotel may be in contention with the city’s convention center.

The university has released requests for proposals from developers to build a 20,000 square-foot hotel and meeting space near the campus.

The site for the project is across the street from the campus on South College Road, where the United Artists Cinema used to be.

The city’s convention center, currently under construction downtown, is twice that size.

An associate vice chancellor for the university said in a phone interview earlier that the two centers are actually quite different.

Associate Vice Chancellor Kate Ward said, “Our conference centers are more of the smaller rooms, smaller groups where they are conferences that we would normally try to have on campus that would relate to our academic departments or administrative departments.”

A spokesperson for the city says the UNCW center is more of meeting center than a convention center, and that it won’t compete with the city’s convention center.
Ward says Mayor Saffo was on the board of the university’s foundation and has known about the proposal for some time.

City Councilwoman Laura Padgett said she knew the university was planning to build a conference center but didn’t realize its size. She expressed concern that it may compete with the convention center and that she’s disappointed about the timing of the announcement.