Business View Magazine - July 2016 99
sically, wiped out. Saltwater and electronics don’t mix;
saltwater and anything, really, doesn’t mix well. So, we
had to completely gut, rebuild, remodel, tear out, and
start from scratch – equipment, utilities, infrastruc-
ture. We operated the facility on a crew of ten people
for about a year and a half in order to survive to where
we could get back on our feet.”
Hardly was the renovation complete, however, when
the Deepwater Horizon oil spill – the world’s largest
accidental spill at over 5 million barrels - covered the
same gulf coastline for 87 days, putting a further two-
year damper on Gulf Coast business. “Not only did we
take the hit from Katrina, but we also took the hit from
the BP disaster. Maybe not to the same extent that
other communities did, but we did feel the economic
downturn in 2010 and ’11,” McDonnell says. The good
news is that, today, the largest beachfront facility of its
kind in the South is doing well. “The last two years of
our operation has been very good in terms of revenues
and numbers of events that we’ve been able to gener-
ate for the facility,” he reports.
The Mississippi Coast Coliseum & Convention Center
was created by legislation in 1968, and originally fund-
ed by a two percent food, beverage, and lodging tax
imposed in Harrison County, Mississippi, where Biloxi
and Gulfport are located. According to McDonnell, the
Center is neither a privately-owned nor municipally-
owned facility. “We’re very unique in the sense that
we’re a political subdivision of the State of Mississippi,
he explains. “We are like a city within the city of Biloxi –
kind of like the Vatican is to Rome,” he quips.
