The Cabarrus Convention & Visitors Bureau opened its new visitor’s center Monday in blowing rain, but in racing fashion.
As Mayor Scott Padgett and county commission Chairman Jay White held a ribbon, CVB chairman Terry Crawford ceremoniously cut the ribbon with the CVB’s promotional stock car.
It’s taken the CVB most of the year to complete its move from the Cabarrus Regional Partnership building on Dale Earnhardt Boulevard to Exit 49, between Concord Mills and Charlotte Motor Speedway, two of the largest tourist attractions in the state.
“The reason we did this is because we need to be at the most densely-traveled part of the area,” said CVB chief Donna Carpenter. “We expect to double the visitor traffic through the center being at Exit 49. By being here, it gives us the opportunity to tell the story of Cabarrus County.”
The new visitor’s center is modeled after a stock car race shop, with three garage doors that open into a conference room.
It also features a Tourist Assistance Portal, a first-of-its-kind in North Carolina touch-screen portal that offers an events calendar, information about attractions and texts coupons and deals to cell phones.
Tourism in Cabarrus County has grown in the economic downturn, said Crawford, especially in the last two years. The tourism industry has about 3,600 jobs and brings about $24.83 million in local and state taxes.
That works out to be about $365 in tax savings per person in Cabarrus County, said White.
The CVB, which gets its operating funds from the hotel occupancy tax, will also spend more for its new digs. It upfitted the 5,000 square-foot space in the King’s Grant Shopping Center, right below Great Wolf Lodge, and will spend about 4 percent of the its $3 million annual budget on the headquarters.
As CVB grows, chamber struggles
In January, the CVB gave notice to the Cabarrus Chamber it would be moving out of the Cabarrus Regional Partnership building it shared with the chamber and Cabarrus Economic Development Corp.
The CVB paid the chamber about $60,000 to rent 3,300 square feet of office space. Without that revenue, the CVB left the chamber holding the financial bag for the 13,000 square-foot, $2.6 million building, on which the chamber still owes about $1 million.
Coupled with a struggling economy, and the chamber has been forced to cut costs.
Chamber president John Cox has taken a 25-percent pay cut on his $163,200 annual salary for the last four months of this year, and four chamber employees are taking furlough days.
Cox said he took a 20-percent pay cut in 2009 for the full 12 months that year.
The chamber also has put its building up for sale. Cox said they are close to entering into a contract to sell that building, and then lease back the space.
Cox wouldn’t disclose the name of the potential buyer since the chamber has not received a contract.
“I want to close by the end of the year on the building sale,” Cox said. “There will be a due diligence period, but hopefully we will be signed, sealed and delivered by mid-December.”
The chamber completed a membership drive in August, netting 157 new members and raising between $40,000 and $50,000 for the membership organization.
“We work for our member businesses and this is a way we say to them we understand what we are going through and we identify with you,” Cox said.
Contact online editor Ben McNeely: 704-789-9131
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