Beach version of this kids' tale won't have a happy ending

When life imitates art, it can be a beautiful thing.

But when life imitates a kids' book, you may have problems.

Welcome to Virginia Beach, where taxpayers are trapped in a dizzying variation of the 1985 classic "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie."

If you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to ask for a glass of milk to go with it.

When you give him the milk he'll probably ask you for a straw.

When he's finished he'll probably ask you for a napkin...

By the end, the mouse is thirsty. Again.

So he'll ask for a glass of milk.

And chances are if he asks you for a glass of milk he's going to want a cookie to go with it.

Here's the Resort City version of that children's tale:

In 1980, Virginia Beach officially opened its roughly $18 million Pavilion conference and convention center. The building at the foot of the expressway was also home to the city's theater.

Yet the Pavilion was inadequate. Tourism honchos quickly griped that it was too small. They wanted to lure major conventions to town, not dinky trade shows.

So they asked for a bigger convention center. In 2005, the Beach gave them one. The city knocked down the 25-year-old facility and built a sparkling $207 million, 516,000-square-foot hall.

That wasn't the end of it. Residents also helped pay for a new theater across town, to the tune of $35 million. Plus, the public chipped in around $31 million for a project 12 blocks away that yielded a parking garage and convention-quality hotel.

Six years later, the municipal mice are back. This time they say the steroidal convention center is losing business to other cities because it lacks an adjacent headquarters hotel.

That'll be $61.8 million more, please.

This sickening cycle bemuses one person: Heywood Sanders. A political scientist at the University of Texas at San Antonio, he may be the country's leading expert on convention center hucksterism.

While consultants routinely declare conventions to be "a growth industry," Sanders says the bottom dropped out of that business long ago - even before the recession caused the industry to "crater."

Sanders is the author of academic articles with titles like "Convention Center Follies," "Convention Mythology" and "Flawed Forecasts." But what does Sanders know? He's just a graduate of Johns Hopkins with a doctorate from Harvard, a member of Phi Beta Kappa and a guest scholar for the Brookings Institution.

"This is not an ideological issue for me," Sanders told me Tuesday. "I don't oppose public spending on the stuff that makes sense.... But it's the same script and the same scenario everywhere."

From coast to coast, in cities large and small, politicians salivate over inflated visions of convention business. They build magnificent facilities and then chase conventions by slashing their fees and pouring public money into ancillary projects designed to give their centers a competitive edge.

After years of studying the convention industry, Sanders says he's not surprised to find municipalities that are struggling to balance budgets and pay teachers that can miraculously find money to throw at their convention centers. These exhibit halls inevitably come with overblown promises of stampeding visitors, millions in tax receipts, and hotels packed with conventioneers.

By phone, Sanders took me on a virtual tour of a couple of underperforming convention centers. Everywhere you look, business is off.

Is there a single venue in the country that's thriving?

"Not that I can find," Sanders said.

Even when the economy recovers, the convention industry won't, he predicted. There is simply a glut of convention facilities in the U.S.

Yet city officials continue to demand that the taxpayers help build convention center hotels, convinced that upscale inns will fill the halls.

"It's the 'lost-business game,' " Sanders said, chuckling.

"Every time they make a sales pitch and don't make a sale, they have to give a reason for the lost business. Not having a hotel becomes a very simple reason."

I took a deep breath and asked Sanders what we could expect next, once a headquarters hotel is in place in Virginia Beach.

"They'll say they need an entertainment district, maybe a light-rail line," Sanders said. "Then they may even need another hotel."

I think by now we all get the picture. We also know how this story is going to end.

It won't be with "happily ever after."

Pilot news researchers Maureen Watts and Jake Hays contributed to this column.

Kerry Dougherty, (757) 446-2306, kerry.dougherty@cox.net