The Connecticut Convention Center. Photo courtesy of Kenneth C. Zirkel / CC BY-SA 4.0

A consultant’s report has issued eight recommendations to help reverse the Connecticut Convention Center’s sagging fortunes.

Johnson Consulting was commissioned to offer suggestions aimed at compensating for business the facility has lost to Mohegan Sun in recent years, including the Hartford Boat Show. The Capitol Region Development Authority’s board heard the report’s recommendations this week.

The 540,000-square-foot CTCC features a 140,000-square-foot exhibition hall that can hold 800 trade show booths, a 40,000-square-foot ballroom, 25,000 square feet of meeting space and an attached 8-story parking garage with 2,600 spaces.

The recommendations range from simple – establishing a customer advisory board and a convention and visitor’s bureau charged with marketing the city – to the complex – building a 300- to 500-room hotel at the CTCC and decking over the adjacent I-91 onramps in the next five years to provide sellable outdoor space and better pedestrian connections to the riverfront and downtown. The CRDA should also consider interior renovations and upgrades to the CTCC itself.

The CTCC already has a 409-room Marriott hotel next door, but the report concluded the facility needs 1,500 new hotel rooms in the area over the next 15 years, at a pace of about 100 per year. The report said not adding a hotel would prevent large conventions from being able to secure sufficient blocks of rooms, forcing the events elsewhere in the region. The target date for completion should be within five years of starting to plan the project, the report said.