Business View Magazine - August 2023

179 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 8 LANDERS CENTER an ideal stop for concerts, family shows, college basketball, gymnastics, tennis, and more. Looking at what the future holds for Landers Center, Crews discussed progress on a major renovation project. “We are breaking ground this fall on a $60-million convention center expansion that will connect the arena to a 200,000-square-foot convention center and a full-service hotel,” Crews stated. For the hotel side, we have partnered with Embassy Suites who will handle operations and construction for that piece of the project.” With targeted completion in early 2026, the arena, convention center, and hotel will all connect for a seamless event experience. Morgan discussed the third-party economic- impact study that Landers Center commissioned for the expansion project. “At the time of the study, it was done with a slightly smaller convention center footprint than what we are actually moving forward with,” Morgan reported. “Even with a smaller space in mind, our study indicated approximately $45 million in annual economic impact to DeSoto County by the new center’s fourth year in operation.” Morgan adds that those numbers are probably a little on the small side, but that’s good news. “We are looking at somewhere around 150 new events annually in the convention center,” he adds. Todd Mastry, the Executive Director for the DeSoto County Convention and Visitors Bureau, estimates that approximately 340 full- and part- time jobs will be created with the expansion. From a tourism standpoint, Morgan shared that they expect 525,000 annual visitors to the convention center with half considered non-local. That means Landers Center will attract over 200,000 visitors and over 65,000 new hotel nights per year.