Hamilton to retire as convention center director

Frankie Hamilton has been trying since 2009 to retire as the director of the Fort Smith Convention Center. Those “trying” days will end July 1.

Hamilton, 68, will end more than 16 years managing a facility that grew from a small civic center built in 1966 to a modern convention center expansion funded with a half-cent tax approved by voters in 1997.

She approached in early 2009 then-Fort Smith City Administrator Dennis Kelly about wanting to retire by the end of 2009. He asked her to stay until the convention center funding issue could be resolved.

“I went to Dennis several times and it kept getting pushed back and pushed back. I told him I wanted to make sure it’s a good transition, but that I really wanted a date so I could plan that (retirement),” Hamilton explained.

A 1% prepared food tax was enacted Feb. 24 by the Fort Smith Board of Directors to resolve a more than 10-year search to plug an annual deficit predicted to occur when state turnback money dried up. The state turnback program ended for Fort Smith in June 2010 from which the city received about $1.8 million a year. Barring a successful citizen-initiated referendum, the tax will go into effect June 1.

When Ray Gosack was promoted in January to Fort Smith City Administrator, Hamilton renewed her retirement request.

“I love this job, I really do, and would not want to leave anybody in a lurch, and I wouldn’t do that. … But I let Ray know I was still wanting to retire,” she said.

Hamilton listed four reasons to seek retirement: traveling with family and three grandsons (two four-year olds and a one-year old) in central Arkansas.

“They are just a delight. And when you miss those little years, you know, you can miss the times that memories are built of,” Hamilton said. “I want to go to their little T-ball games and do things with them.”

Hamilton said Gosack called recently to say she could retire.

Hamilton, a member of the Arkansas Tourism Hall of Fame, has worked in the hospitality industry for 30 years, having begun her career at the Sheraton Hotel in Fort Smith in 1981.

In September 1994, Hamilton asked then-Fort Smith Mayor Ray Baker for a letter of recommendation for a job in Branson, Mo.

“The mayor said he did not want me to leave, and he asked me to apply for the job at the civic center,” Hamilton noted in a statement issued Wednesday (April 20) by the city. “After much consideration I applied for the job in Fort Smith, even though it paid considerably less than the opening in Branson. I did accept the job here. I didn’t starve to death, and I was able to stay close to my grandchildren, who were living in Barling.”

Following are a few of the “high profile events and projects” Hamilton was part of during her 16 years.
• The transformation from a civic center to a convention center, through improvements financed by a one half of one percent sales tax approved by voters in 1997 and paid off approximately 7 years later.
• Recruitment of the Marriott Courtyard, a project owned by Springfield, Missouri hotelier John Q. Hammons.
• Witnessing the move-in and move-out of a promoter’s first ice skating show in the Performing Arts Center.
• Welcoming The Simple Life to the Fort Smith Convention Center (a Fox television network reality TV show, starring Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie).
• Welcoming former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani to an event at the Fort Smith Convention Center.

Hamilton listed the following as the two most personally rewarding aspects of her career:
• Induction into the Arkansas Tourism Hall of Fame because the selection is made by peers within the hospitality industry; and,
• Revenue continues to increase at the convention center each year and, in 2010, was more than $681,000.

“Under Frankie’s leadership, the convention center had a direct impact of more than $20 million to our region’s economy in 2010,” Gosack said in the statement.

Hamilton said the only downside to the job has been in being blamed for the center not producing more revenue. She noted that when the convention center was expanded, decisions were made — no full kitchen, no alcohol sales, restrictive rate structure — that took away some revenue opportunities.

In the past few years, she has asked to implement a ticketing system, allow for alcohol sales, boost catering commissions and other things that could generate more revenue. Each request, Hamilton said, was rebuffed because the future of the center was uncertain.

However, she is now hopeful that new faces on the Fort Smith Board of Directors and the 1% prepared food tax will allow the center to reach its full potential.

A spring 2010 ad hoc committee that reviewed convention center revenue and expenses issued a report that included a request to seek more efficiencies and revenue opportunities in convention center operations — including a better process to audit the 10% charge the center collects from catered food and beverage sales. The ad hoc convention center committee unanimously endorsed the idea of a 1% hospitality tax to fill an up to $1 million funding shortfall related to the Fort Smith Convention Center.

Hiring Hamilton’s replacement depends on what happens to the 1% prepared food tax. If it is implemented on June 1, the Fort Smith Advertising & Promotion Commission would oversee the center and would be responsible to hire a new director. If the tax is not put on the books, a replacement would be selected by city staff and approved by the Fort Smith board.

As to a replacement, Hamilton a “genuine people person” with at least 10 years of hospitality industry experience.

“There are some really good people out there,” Hamilton said of the candidate pool.

The position, which now oversees 12 full-time employees, has a salary range of $59,155 to $93,080.