 
          Business View Magazine
        
        
          
            5
          
        
        
          meeting planner choose to hold an event at a local
        
        
          hotel. “Our relationship with the hotel community that
        
        
          provides us rooms for our events is really good. So, we
        
        
          wouldn’t look at a banquet that went from our building
        
        
          to the Marriott or the Crowne Plaza or one of the other
        
        
          properties as a loss as long as it stays in the state.”
        
        
          In its present configuration, McCarvill admits that there
        
        
          is precious little room for the RICC to expand. “We’re
        
        
          landlocked,” he says, “so all we can do at the present
        
        
          time is on our footprint. We do have a few things we
        
        
          can do; we can probably add about another 22,000
        
        
          square feet of meeting space or maybe another ball-
        
        
          room, which our planners would like. It helps the plan-
        
        
          ners to have a little more flexibility. But if we needed to
        
        
          do something major – adding 50, 60, or 100 thousand
        
        
          square feet, we’d have a hard time doing it because
        
        
          there’s just no place to go.”
        
        
          Meanwhile, upgrading the RICC’s technology is Mc-
        
        
          Carvill’s present focus. “We’re going to be addressing
        
        
          Wi-Fi and as much capability as we can possibly put
        
        
          into these facilities because it’s an integral part of the
        
        
          whole experience. You need to make sure that you’re
        
        
          covering all of your bases with the new technologies,
        
        
          so we’re definitely upgrading in that area. And a lot of
        
        
          what we’re doing is in the area of energy efficiency.