Rendell to make center bill-signing an event

Gov. Rendell plans to take until next week to sign a bill approved by the legislature to spend $700 million in state gambling revenue to expand the Convention Center, state officials said yesterday.

The state Senate, by a healthy margin, and the state House, by a two-vote majority, passed the legislation late Tuesday and sent it to Rendell.

But the governor's budget secretary, Michael Masch, said after a meeting of the Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority board that Rendell did not want to have a high-profile signing ceremony for the bill just yet.

Rather, Rendell wants to come to Philadelphia for a more public event, perhaps while land is being cleared for the project or as construction starts, to let people from the region know how the funding will be used, said Masch, an ex-officio member of the board.

"This is a very good addition for the whole region," he said.

The expansion, an idea that Philadelphia political leaders and convention officials have pushed for more than a decade, will extend the center to Broad Street from 13th, between Arch and Race streets, when it is finished in 2010.

The legislation - which also included funding for a new arena for the Pittsburgh Penguins and other Allegheny County projects - calls for using revenue that is already pouring into the state's Gaming Economic Development and Tourism Fund to pay for construction.

The bill had bipartisan support from the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas, but little from other areas of the state, authority chairman Thomas A. "Buck" Riley said.

Funds for operation and maintenance of the enlarged building will come from hotel-occupancy and sales taxes and from a $15 million annual contribution from the city. The city, which paid most of the cost of the original center when it was built in 1993, budgeted $21.2 million for fiscal 2007, which ended June 30, for operations and maintenance.

Madeline Apollo, the Convention Center Authority's chief financial officer, reported to the board that the city was expected to wind up the fiscal year owing only $16.1 million, because of higher revenues and lower costs than budgeted.

The Convention Center now covers the area between 11th, 13th, Arch and Race, with a portion over the Reading Terminal Market between Market, 11th and 12th. The project will give the building 700,000 square feet of exhibit space, compared with 440,000 now, making it one of the nation's 12 largest convention centers and capable of handling larger trade shows or two big meetings simultaneously, the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau said.

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