Phoenix picked by NRA
'09 session likely to draw 65,000

Monica Alonzo-Dunsmoor
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 25, 2006 12:00 AM

Phoenix has landed the largest convention in its history, mostly due to a $600 million expansion of the Phoenix Convention Center, a new downtown hotel and a long-standing relationship with the National Rifle Association.

NRA officials on Friday said Phoenix will host their May 2009 annual conference, an event expected to draw as many as 65,000 people. The delegates will collectively spend as much as $94.3 million during their stay for rental cars, hotel accommodations and meals.

The NRA convention is a key victory for Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and other officials who pushed hard to get public financing for the convention center expansion and a 1,000-room, $350 million Sheraton hotel. The goal was to garner larger conventions such as the NRA. Before the expansion plans, the largest convention in Phoenix drew 15,000 attendees.

"There were naysayers who doubted whether Phoenix and the state should be investing in a convention center and hotel," Gordon said. "The investment we all promised would pay back is paying back, and with dividends."

Scott White, executive vice president of the Greater Phoenix Convention & Visitors Bureau, said that without those projects, the NRA "never would have considered Phoenix."

The NRA had a convention in Phoenix more than 10 years ago, but that one was far smaller. The long-standing relationship between the NRA and Phoenix officials provided an added boost.

'Working relationship'

"We certainly appreciate our working relationship with the mayor and his office," Andrew Arulanandam, director of public affairs for the NRA, said.

Gordon said that the association has given its considerable lobbying muscle to Phoenix.

He asked NRA President Sandra Froman in October 2005 for help after the Phoenix Fire Department's urban search and rescue team was suspended from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for traveling with armed guards during Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

"They helped introduced legislation to authorize police officers to carry firearms to protect the rescuers," Gordon said. "They lobbied Congress on our behalf and the pressure helped."

The association stood by Gordon in 1999 when he was working on Shannon's Law, a law that makes it a felony to discharge a weapon in the city. It also worked with the city to protect the Ben Avery Shooting Facility in north Phoenix from encroachment.

There is $3 million in the city's $878.5 million bond program earmarked to improve the shooting range. Gordon said it was a "way of saying 'thank you' to the NRA for their partnership."

Voters will decide on the bond package on March 14.
City officials are convinced that other large conventions will follow the NRA.

"This is going to bring a national focus to Phoenix," Gordon said. "Other large conventions follow the leaders, and the NRA is a leader."

Phoenix beat out about a dozen other cities competing for the 2009 convention.

The convention center expansion will triple the center space to nearly 900,000 square feet by early 2009, providing the latest technology and enough space for the association's more than 500 exhibitors and to accommodate about 3,000 people in banquet rooms. The expansion puts Phoenix's center among the 20 largest in the country.

The association also looks at cities, like Phoenix, that are "friendly to the rights of law-abiding gun owners," Arulanandam said.

Reach the reporter at monica.alonzo-dunsmoor@arizonarepublic.com
or (602) 444-2478