LYNNWOOD — When executive chef Michael Felsenstein makes a sauce, he doesn’t reach for chicken stock in a can.
Felsenstein and his cooks create their own flavorful chicken stock and veal stocks — used in many sauces, soups and entrees — from scratch. The effort can take an extra 16 to 20 hours, but “it is worth taking those extra steps to make sure we do something of quality that we believe in,” Felsenstein said.
Those are the kind of details that 10 full-time employees and roughly 100 on-call workers have to get right for the Lynnwood Convention Center to be a success. And it’s working, according to officials for the Lynnwood Public Facilities District, which is responsible for the convention center, and SMG, which operates the center.
During its first 12 months of operation, the convention center at 3711 196th St. SW hosted 392 events. That’s about 56 percent more than expected, according to district figures.
The center generated $969,609 in food and beverage sales and $421,775 in rental revenues between May 2005 and April 2006. That’s about $25,000 more than expected, according to the district numbers.
“From the day the building opened, the operation has been phenomenal,” said Grant Dull, the district’s executive director. “Food and beverage service has been top notch. Customer service has been quite good.”
Built to attract attention, commerce and future development, the center is doing its job, said Mayor Don Gough.
“It has performed admirably and beyond its expectations which bodes well for the future. That is the really good news,” Gough said. “We are getting a very good reputation. And we are getting a good reputation for the food. I personally enjoy it.”
This year looks like it will continue the positive trend. The center, which planned to book 387 events in 2006, has already signed contracts for 307 events.
The center continues to attract a wide variety of events, including wedding receptions, job fairs, concerts as well as corporate meetings for Boeing, Fluke, Intermec, Myrio and Premera Blue Cross.
SMG manages center
SMG, a Philadelphia-based company which operates the convention center on contract for the district, is key to that success, Dull said.
SMG is a joint venture between the Hyatt Hotel Co. and ARAMARK Corp., which provides food, hospitality, facility management services and uniform and work apparel.
SMG provides facility services to 195 venues in 41 states, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Canada and Europe, controls over 1.7 million entertainment seats worldwide and manages more than 10 million feet of exhibition space.
The Lynnwood Convention Center is one of the 49 such facilities the company owns, but the only one in the Northwest as well as one of the smallest.
At this point, district officials intend to renew SMG’s four-year contract when it expires in 2008, according to Dull. “We are very pleased,” he said.
What the district needs now is a full service hotel “within a stone’s throw” of the center, Dull said. Inland Construction of Spokane has expressed an interest in building such a hotel on 196th Street, directly south of the center on land owned by the Edmonds School District. Before buying the site, the company is waiting for appropriate zoning regulations, which could be adopted in July by the Lynnwood City Council.
Producing a consistent quality experience day after day is critical for the center’s ongoing success, especially when it comes to securing repeat customers.
It will not be easy considering Felsenstein and his crew served 10,500 dinners last year. But they have a growing reputation for high quality food and diverse menus, said Mike Echelbarger, chair of the Lynnwood Public Facilities District. They have prepared traditional foods for an East Indian birthday party and a Mexican quinceanera party, a celebration in honor of a girl’s 15th birthday.
“These guys are operating the finest restaurant in town,” Echelbarger said.
The center’s amenities and built-in technology also help attract clients and repeat customers, said general manager Eddie Tadlock. For instance, telephone, video and data lines are built into the walls. Within minutes, employees can activate a new line to any room for clients.
In other convention centers, there would be video cables, phone lines and data lines in the hallways and it would take technicians hours to make a last minute change, said Tadlock, who has worked and managed other convention centers, including the Washington State Convention &Trade Center in Seattle.
“This is so easy, I could do this,” he said.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
