CINCINNATI — A new convention headquarters hotel in downtown Cincinnati could be open by late 2025, but it's not a guarantee. 3CDC laid out a possible new timeline for the hotel and told county commissioners about the need for renovations to the existing convention center on Tuesday.

The hotel - recommended to be about 800 rooms with a national brand - is "critical" to Cincinnati's ongoing FIFA World Cup bid for matches in summer 2026, according to the bid committee.

"Are you saying the convention hotel will be guaranteed under your [plan], we can get it up? Or are we not guaranteed?" asked Hamilton County commissioner Alicia Reece.

"I can't guarantee anything. I don't control everything," said Steve Leeper, 3CDC president and CEO. "I can tell you that we have a track record of getting things done and we do so in a timely fashion and we're going to work very hard on it. But for me to sit here and tell you I can guarantee something, that would be intellectually dishonest on my part."

3CDC was appointed to manage the development of a new "convention center district" around the Duke Energy Convention Center earlier this year. That includes plans for a new convention headquarters hotel near the convention center.

Leeper told commissioners Tuesday the plan would place the new hotel on the site of a surface parking lot owned by The Port just to the south of the convention center, instead of on the site of the former MIllennium Hotel to the east across Elm Street. The Millennium Hotel was demolished earlier this year.

"I am confident that we are going to get interest in this," Leeper said.

He told commissioners the goal is to have a developer and agreement for the hotel by the end of the year, with construction starting in the first half of 2023. That would put the hotel on track to open in third quarter of 2025.

Convention Update 5/17/2022 by WCPO 9 News on Scribd

Leeper also told commissioners 3CDC has hired two firms to research and make recommendations for possible changes and improvements to the current Duke Energy Convention Center.

Moody Nolan and TVS Architects have been interviewing people and groups who use the center, Leeper said. The firms have worked together on some large projects, like New York City's Javits Center and Nashville's Music City Center.

"I can tell you that this one ranks pretty low down compared to our peer cities," he said. "I'm not gonna kid you, it's not gonna be cheap."

Leeper told commissioners he expects the recommended improvements to cost more than $100 million. Options to pay for those are limited, citing the current 10.5% lodging tax as being one of the highest in Ohio. But Leeper said 3CDC is looking at ways to use that revenue more efficiently.

"They both feed off each other," he said. "The hotel will do better with the convention center upgraded and the convention center will certainly do better with a convention center hotel. They're both important and we need to get them both done if we can."

Commissioners expressed concern over the new hotel timeline and paying improvements, especially on the heels of nearly $500 million in recommended improvements to Paul Brown Stadium.

"We have very limited taxpayer money and the taxpayers are saying 'Hold on, we can't keep funding all this,'" said commissioner Reece. "So to come in and say we need a new convention center, I'm just putting it out there, it's going to be very tough."

When it comes to the current convention center and the lodging tax, the City of Cincinnati has a stake and vested interest as well. Leeper said he will make a similar presentation to City Council soon.

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CINCINNATI — Cincinnati residents will find out on June 16 if the city won a bid to host FIFA World Cup soccer matches in the summer of 2026, according to the Associated Press.

A winning bid wouldn’t just be a boost for soccer fans; it could also benefit the Cincinnati Bengals.

That’s because World Cup matches would be played at Paul Brown Stadium, which will be 26 years old by game time. The facility is already considered middle aged by NFL standards.

As the Bengals begin negotiations with Hamilton County over a new lease, expensive upgrades to the stadium could be a sticking point. County officials say taxpayers may be more willing to pay for stadium upgrades if they also benefit the World Cup.

“The county will be keen on honing in to where the overlap is, and then perhaps prioritizing those enhancements because they serve a dual purpose and it’s more bang for the buck,” said Hamilton County Commissioner Denise Driehaus. “A lot of it is the same kind of stuff that we’re going to be thinking about anyway. And that’s intentional.”

A delegation of FIFA officials visited Cincinnati last October and toured Paul Brown Stadium as part of its nationwide vetting of potential host cities. The stadium's seating capacity is more than 60,000 and it was designed to transition to a soccer field from a football field.

“When Paul Brown Stadium was built there was an expectation that soccer might be played in that stadium. So, we have the capability, pretty easily, to remove the corners to widen that field and also to remove those seats so that they’re not in the way,” Driehaus said.

FIFA had been expected to announce the winning World Cup host cities in April, but their decision was delayed by some late information and the addition of Vancouver as a potential host.

“You’ve got three countries in the mix, and you’ve got the World Cup organizers who will want to spread it out a little bit,” said Kevin Reichard, publisher of Football Stadium Digest and Soccer Stadium Digest.

World Cup games will be co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico with games in all three countries. In all, 16 U.S. metro areas are competing to be among the 10 or 11 hosts for matches.

Major cities such as Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Seattle, Dallas, Boston and Philadelphia are in the running. But Cincinnati is vying to host games in the earlier rounds of the tournament and competing against regional cities such as Kansas City, Nashville and Denver.

Julio Cortez/AP

Several national rankings placed Cincinnati as a long shot to win World Cup matches. Some gave low marks to Paul Brown Stadium, noting that other stadiums are newer, hold more fans and have domes to protect against heat and storms.

A report in February by 42Floors, a branch of California-based real estate data firm Yardi, ranked Cincinnati as 7^th among the then 17 cities vying to host World Cup matches.

The report gave high marks to Cincinnati for its soccer team training facilities and fan fest venues at The Banks and Sawyer Park, and decent scores for its airport proximity and number of hotel rooms.

But the report ranked Paul Brown Stadium as 16^th out of the then 17 competing cities, noting that FIFA places significant emphasis on stadiums in its selection.

Paul Brown Stadium is already under the microscope. The Bengals’ lease with Hamilton County expires in 2026 and negotiations over expensive stadium upgrades have already begun.

The Bengals and the county hired Gensler Sports to evaluate Paul Brown Stadium. The architecture and design firm revealed the results of its capital assessment during an April 26 meeting. It called for extensive repairs over the next two decades to the stadium, which opened in 2000.

The price tag for those repairs is $493 million (in 2021 dollars) focusing largely on repairing and painting steel connections and frames; fixing concrete stair landings; replacing stadium seats and light fixtures; upgrading electric and plumbing; and stopping frequent water leaks.

Emily Gibney

The assessment, paid for by the county and the Bengals, specifically mentioned that stadium upgrades could help win the World Cup.

“It should be noted that recent improvements and renovations that result from the information in this assessment report will significantly contribute to local efforts in securing large scale events such as World Cup,” according to the capital assessment summary.

A second round of potential upgrades to Paul Brown Stadium will be revealed this fall – likely $200 million more in fan enhancements such as mega suites, luxury lounges, high-end food and drink, easier stadium entry, and new signs and scoreboards.

Dwayne Slavey

County officials have not said which updates they will pay for or what their potential budget is.

But, in anticipation of the World Cup bid and for the Bengals, county officials have already started to upgrade the Wi-Fi connectivity at Paul Brown Stadium.

“What can we offer by way of that bid to make it enticing for the World Cup to come here … and these are things that are already on the table, so let’s do that,” Driehaus said.

FIFA also requires that World Cup games be played on grass, so the Bengals’ turf field will have to be removed if Cincinnati wins the bid.

“I’m very positive that we may be selected because we have tried so hard to adjust to what they are saying they need,” said Hamilton County Commissioner Stephanie Summerow Dumas. “I’ve heard the Bengals may possibly want to keep the grass (field) so we may not have to go back and forth … with the renovations.”

Phil Didion | WCPO file

Also on the county’s radar: adding automated signs to streets during games to alleviate traffic congestion and recommend better routes to parking areas and gates, Dumas said.

Reichard, the publisher of the stadium digests, said FIFA likely won’t require a long list of upgrades to Paul Brown Stadium because soccer’s world governing body is most concerned about the volume of seating.

“World Cup officials tend to stress just sheer numbers in terms of how many fans they can cram into the stadium. It’s not a high-end sort of play for a stadium, it’s more of a ‘how many butts can we fit into a space,’” Reichard said. “They also want to make sure that there’s plenty of amenities and hotel rooms for the fans as well … so it’s not necessarily a stadium-facility issue, it’s more a matter of logistics for a big event.”

Cincinnati may not win a World Cup bid because of Paul Brown Stadium, but Joe Cobbs, a professor of sports business at Northern Kentucky University, hopes the city doesn’t lose it because of the stadium.

Darko Bandic/AP

“I think our goal should be to try and renovate the stadium in a way that doesn’t eliminate us from that conversation solely because of the stadium,” Cobbs said. “I don’t think we’re going to win the bid based on our stadium, that’s just not going to happen … but hopefully the city could win the World Cup bid based on other aspects.”

Rick Eckstein, a national stadium expert and sociology professor at Villanova University, said FIFA uses an incredibly complex algorithm to select World Cup host cities.

And once FIFA makes a decision, it will only say why it chose the winning host cities. It never says why it didn’t select certain cities, Eckstein said.

If Cincinnati isn’t chosen, the reasons why, “could be manipulated and will be manipulated,” Eckstein said.

“I can imagine there are even some people who might appreciate being turned down for the World Cup,” Eckstein said. “Because now it would be an added motivator to say, ‘now look what happened, we’ve got this third-grade stadium, we can’t even get the World Cup.’”

Roman Abramovich’s 19-year ownership of Chelsea is ending after the British government approved the sale of the Premier League club by the sanctioned Russian oligarch.

Los Angeles Dodgers part-owner Todd Boehly will now take over the team.

The government had to be sure that Abramovich, who was sanctioned over his links to Russian President Vladimir Putin, did not profit from the enforced sale of the club.

The reigning FIFA Club World Cup winners and 2021 European champions will be sold for 2.5 billion pounds ($3.1 billion) — the highest price ever for a sports team — once Premier League approval is granted.

Proceeds from the sale will go into a frozen bank account controlled by the government, according to Sky Sports News.

California-based Clearlake Capital will assume the majority shareholding.

The team has been operating under a government license since March, when Abramovich’s assets were frozen.

The license will expire on May 31.

CINCINNATI — The delegation tasked with sizing up potential host cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup is on its way to Dallas after a busy Friday looking into what Cincinnati has to offer.

Delegates split into four groups visited the Banks, Paul Brown Stadium and training facilities, as well as met with business and political leaders to decide if Cincinnati is the right place to host World Cup games. Officials must ensure facilities meet the goals of a world-class venue, meaning infrastructure plays a big role in their decision. Still, there is more than brick and mortar that goes into the decision. When picking host cities, delegates are also looking at the community.

"What they're so focused on and concerned about is the spirit of the city...the spirit of this region," said Julie Calvert with Cincinnati USA Convention & Visitors Bureau. "What's important to them is the authenticity, the spirit of the people here."

Despite the rain, soccer fans turned out — showing off their authenticity and pride in Cincinnati in hopes of seeing the world's greatest players in five years. The passion did not go unnoticed, with Concacaf President Victor Montagliani calling the city "an authentic bunch."

"I love Cincinnati, and for them to get a chance to have such a big, you know, world spotlight on them would be amazing, and I think they can do great things with it," fan Maria Vassanelli said.

FIFA delegates visit Cincinnati for World Cup pitch

Organizers of the bid said the excitement would not only apply to Cincinnati, but surrounding areas. The city has regional partnerships with Cleveland, Columbus, Louisville and other cities to ensure fan experience throughout the region — exciting fans throughout the Tri-State.

"This is an exciting possibility for not only Cincinnati, but for the whole showcase of Northern Kentucky, Indiana. People will come down from all over," fan Jeffery Fromen said. "Three states right together, they have a lot to offer."

Delegates are also thinking about the future of soccer — and Cincinnati brought plenty of young fans to give a look into the area's fanbase.

"Ultimately, the World Cup is delivered by people. That's what's been great to see here today is how everyone has pulled together across the Tri-States and to want to host the World Cup here," said Colin Smith, FIFA's chief competitions and events officer. "The presentation we received today was excellent."

If things go Cincinnati's way, officials said, the World Cup could bring up to $480 million to the Tri-State. There are still 17 other U.S. cities in the running — and organizers believe the city has a great chance of hosting a group stage. A decision should be made by March 2022.

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Editor's note: WCPO 9 is a media sponsor of the group behind the bid Cincinnati Soccer City USA. Our coverage of the bid is not influenced by the sponsorship and our editorial decisions and reporting are independent.