New conventions chief:

I’m ready for
a change of pace

Dick Walsh says the job will
differ significantly from his last post
at the Los Angeles center

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Dick Walsh, the new general manager of the Hawaii Convention Center, says he is looking forward to the challenges of running the $350 million facility.

Walsh, whose appointment was formally ratified yesterday by a unanimous vote of the Convention Center Authority, said the center at Kapiolani and Kalakaua differs from the Los Angeles Convention Center that he managed for more than 23 years.

"We're a heavy trade show building in Los Angeles," he said. Walsh presided over a three-year, $500 million expansion of the Los Angeles center, owned by the city, that doubled its size to 800,000 square feet of exhibition space.

The Hawaii center, with 200,000 feet of useable space, won't attract many of the big industrial shows the Los Angeles center was designed for, Walsh said in an interview.

It is aimed instead at professionals, such as doctors and lawyers.

Walsh downplays the controversy that arose over his working as a consultant for the Hawaii center while he was running the Los Angeles facility.

Walsh, who has said he did the Hawaii work on his own time, said he agrees with comments that the $20 million annual deficit in Los Angeles should not have been a surprise.

When the Los Angeles expansion started it was known that the operations of the center could not pay for the debt service on the loans to build it. Like Hawaii's center, it is considered an investment to raise tax revenues from convention goers, supporters say.

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan cited the deficit, however, in criticizing Walsh for his $40,000 consultancy work for Hawaii in 1994-96.

Walsh handed in his resignation in Los Angeles in July but was expected to stay on until January. He said yesterday his obligations to Los Angeles are now over.

He was hired for the Hawaii job by Spectacor Management Group, the Philadelphia company that has the management contract.

During his consultancy for Hawaii, Walsh helped select Spectacor from among several applicants for the management contract.

He said yesterday he was completely surprised to find himself later working for SMG.

The Hawaii Convention Center will be completed Oct. 8, a month ahead of schedule, and within its budget, officials of the design-build team Nordic/PCL Joint Venture told the Convention Center Authority yesterday.

It will be formally handed over to the state Oct. 15.