The City of Rehoboth Beach will increase how much it costs to rent its renovated convention center next year.
Nonprofits currently pay $800 a day to rent the Rehoboth Beach Convention Center Friday through Sunday. Next year, they’ll pay $2,000. For-profit groups will need to come up with about double what they do now for a weekend rental when the rate rises to $2,500.
Rehoboth Beach Commissioner Kathy McGuiness voted in-favor of the increase when commissioners held a special meeting last Friday after looking at current rates of convention centers in other towns. The city had not increased the center's rental fees since 2009, according to the Rehoboth-Dewey Chamber of Comemrce.
“Due diligence was completed where comparables were looked at from 20 different municipalities, not only just regular municipalities, but ones that were resorts,” McGuiness said. “So this was not taken lightly.”
Rates for weekday rentals and renting conference suites in the convention center will also increase.
The center closed down for two years as the city upgraded parts of the facility and built its new city hall, City of Rehoboth Beach spokeswoman Krys Johnson said. It re-opened March 1.
Johnson says many vendors have already expressed an interest in holding their event at the revamped center, despite the increased costs.
“A lot of folks did go to other venues or they did not have their event,” Johnson said. So a lot of those folks are coming back to the convention center, it’s quite a large space in the city and they are very happy to be back.”
However, Rehoboth-Dewey Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Carol Everhart says the chamber won’t be coming back to host a garage sale event they used to host in the center three times a year. They'll continue to host that event in Cape Henlopen High School, where the chamber maximized the space so they only have to hold their event once a year, Everhart said.
She says the chamber worries many nonprofits won’t be able to afford the increases.
“Especially for a nonprofit who is counting their pennies, if they found another way to hold their events the past two years, they might not come back,” Everhart said.
The new fees will go into effect in January 2019.
Everhart said money from the center does not help generate tourism revenue, but "more feet on the street, more potential sales."
Money profited from the center goes into Rehoboth’s general fund.
