Business View Magazine - September 2016 99
meeting planner choose to hold an event at a local
hotel. “Our relationship with the hotel community that
provides us rooms for our events is really good. So, we
wouldn’t look at a banquet that went from our building
to the Marriott or the Crowne Plaza or one of the other
properties as a loss as long as it stays in the state.”
In its present configuration, McCarvill admits that there
is precious little room for the RICC to expand. “We’re
landlocked,” he says, “so all we can do at the present
time is on our footprint. We do have a few things we
can do; we can probably add about another 22,000
square feet of meeting space or maybe another ball-
room, which our planners would like. It helps the plan-
ners to have a little more flexibility. But if we needed to
do something major – adding 50, 60, or 100 thousand
square feet, we’d have a hard time doing it because
there’s just no place to go.”
Meanwhile, upgrading the RICC’s technology is Mc-
Carvill’s present focus. “We’re going to be addressing
Wi-Fi and as much capability as we can possibly put
into these facilities because it’s an integral part of the
whole experience. You need to make sure that you’re
covering all of your bases with the new technologies,
so we’re definitely upgrading in that area. And a lot of
what we’re doing is in the area of energy efficiency.
