Conference Center Proposal Postponed

Consideration of the conference center -- slated to include a hotel, executive conference rooms and an 18-hole golf course -- was the first item on the committee's agenda but was shuffled to the end of the meeting and ultimately moved to the November agenda.

N.C. State Chancellor Marye Anne Fox said the board stalling discussion of the proposal might not bode well for similar projects on other system campuses -- namely UNC-Chapel Hill. If the rules for proposals of the center's nature became more stringent, it could affect UNC-CH's development plans, Fox said.

Members voted to move deliberation of the nearly $67 million project to November's committee meeting after Fox misspoke, upsetting both board members and representatives for the Triangle Area Hotel Motel Association.

Fox mistakenly announced that the association had requested that discussion on the conference center be moved to the board's November meeting.

It was in fact the N.C. Travel and Tourism Board, not the Triangle Area Hotel Motel Association, that requested deferral of the project's consideration.

In an impromptu meeting moments after Fox made her mistaken announcement, BOG Chairman Brad Wilson scolded her for speaking prematurely and without accurate information. "I needed one point of cooperation from you, and that was not it," Wilson said. "Now I've got to go fix it."

But Fox defended herself, saying she was misinformed and had made an honest mistake.

The board met briefly in closed session after which it reconvened in open session and voted to honor the Travel and Tourism Board's request to delay the conference center's deliberation.

Though members were visibly upset that Fox publicly misspoke, they said they did not delay the proposal's consideration for that reason.

Addison Bell, chairman of the BOG Finance and Budget Committee, said members decided to deliberate the proposal in November because several new committee members are not familiar with the project, adding that all members had only recently received revised plans for the conference center.

Members need more time to examine recent analysis of the project, he said. "The board only got the information a few weeks ago."

Fox willingly acquiesced to the board's request and acknowledged the importance of considering concerns of the travel board, which has previously expressed worries that the conference center would harm its profitability in the Triangle.

"To the extent possible we want to be accommodating," she said. "We're bending over backward to be sensitive to a community we value.

Though she is willing to cooperate with members of the Triangle's tourism community, Fox said, she was disappointed that a vote on the project did not occur Thursday. "We had hoped to get a vote today," she said.

But Fox said she is not overly concerned about the delay. "It won't materially affect the construction schedule."

The State & National Editor can be reached at stntdesk@unc.edu.