Mayor Pam Iorio said this afternoon she would endorse studying the viability of a meetings or conference center in Tampa's West Shore district, tying the proposal to the city's light rail plans.
Iorio, the leading advocate for a regional light rail and enhanced bus transit network, also praised the Hillsborough County Commission's vote Wednesday to move toward putting a 1-cent sales tax increase for mass transit and road improvements on the ballot in November 2010.
"I believe taxpayers will approve it -- not overwhelmingly - but I believe they will approve it," Iorio told a gathering at the Hillsborough County Hotel & Motel Association's annual meeting.
Iorio said she envisioned a light rail network linking West Shore and downtown as a second corridor following one that could be built as early as 2018 between the University of South Florida area and downtown if voters approve the tax increase.
She said a light rail station could serve a West Shore conference center as the Tampa Bay area moved into 21st century economic development competition with similar-sized cities nationwide.
The Hillsborough County Tourist Development Council is expected to vote on proceeding with further study of a West Shore conference center, first proposed in February, at its Nov. 12 meeting.
The center, backed primarily by West Shore hoteliers, would be much smaller than the Tampa Convention Center, but could draw business to an area where hotel room inventory will grow from 8,600 rooms to 10,000 rooms in about a year.
The TDC spent $25,000 for a preliminary assessment by PricewaterhouseCoopers of the need for a West Shore meetings venue.
The size, location and funding for a meetings facility have not been formally studied, nor has the impact of how a new facility might compete with the Tampa Convention Center.
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