Business View Magazine - September 2016 111
were determined to maintain as much of the building’s
physical attributes as possible, while still creating a
contemporary facility for meetings, conferences, con-
ventions, and other events. “There was an extensive
retrofit to add meeting rooms,” says Bevans, “but the
foundry workshops were fairly easy to convert – just
some rewiring, pouring concrete floors, adding floor
boxes, HVAC, and all the modern conveniences. They
left the furnace in place where all the metal was forged
and we have the gantry cranes still in place. So, there
are some neat reminders of the facility.”
Between 2000 and 2003, the building went through
a significant expansion. “They more than doubled the
size of the meeting space,” Bevans continues. “One
exhibit hall was added to connect the two original halls
to give it three contiguous exhibit halls – up to 55,000
square feet. They added a 21,000 square foot ball-
room, another 6,000 square foot meeting room, and
balcony space to overlook the Chattahoochee River,
which opened up the river side of the building. Then
they added another 9,000 square
foot space over the new exhibit hall
they built, and refurbished the origi-
nal north wing of the complex – a two-
story wing that gave us an additional
seven meeting rooms.”
Today, the Columbus Georgia Con-
vention & Trade Center has over
182,000 square feet of floor space
and 17 meeting rooms. All its meeting
rooms and exhibit halls are equipped
with modern lighting and CAT5 en-
hanced Ethernet connections, and
there is Wi-Fi throughout the entire
facility. And yet, the old brick walls,
the huge wooden beams, and the ex-
posed ceilings, representing the best
of 19th century craftsmanship, are
intact, creating an ambience rare in modern conven-
tion facilities.
The Center averages over 500 events a year with an
occupancy rate close to 70 percent. It has 28 full- and
part-time employees, and the Center’s exclusive, in-
house catering company has another ten full-time em-
ployees, plus on-call wait staff, as needed. “We mar-
ket to regional conferences and associations, regional
education and professional groups, as well as regional
corporate businesses” says Bevans. “We also do quite
a bit of local, social business; we do a strong catering
business. We do graduations, as well, from some of
the local colleges.”
While the Center’s business is strong – Bevans says
that it will gross over $3 million, this year - a lot of
competition has sprung up in Columbus over the past
decade. “That’s been one of our challenges,” he ad-
