.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} State government is a fine thing to have on the premises, and major insurance companies provide lots of good jobs. In Charlie Johnson’s opinion, however, Des Moines suffers from the lack of a great big state university.

If you’re Madison, Wis., or Columbus, Ohio, you have an automatic flow of college events – concerts, sports, speakers. Must be nice. Here, we have to work for every tourist dollar we get, and our T-shirt sales are practically zero. More important, we’re not sure that we can draw enough conventions and special events to keep a big, first-class hotel busy if we build it near the Iowa Events Center.

Johnson is a consultant from Chicago who knows Central Iowa well. He has worked on the Earthpark plan and the Iowa Speedway in Newton, and last week he came to talk about the hotel question.

An impressive gathering of decision-makers listened and then made it clear that they don’t know which button to push next.

Johnson, who has watched a few cities try to make up their mind about such things, isn’t surprised by the handwringing. “It took Overland Park (Kan.) 20 years to decide” on building convention facilities, he said after the session.

His company, C.H. Johnson Consulting Inc., recommends only a couple of major changes from the last set of suggestions on this topic from Pinnacle Advisory Group. Cut the size of the ballroom and build the hotel south of the Events Center instead of north, nudging it closer to the downtown core.

His real message was: In the name of all that’s holy, yes, build a hotel. “If they want to compete,” Johnson said later, “they have to come to grips with reality.” Other mid-sized cities, such as Omaha, Oklahoma City and Wichita, are well ahead of Des Moines, he told the group. “Your downtown is clean and nice, but not as vibrant as some other cities,” Johnson said, choosing his words perfectly.

When the subject is Des Moines’ downtown, we don’t care for words like “dead” or phrases like “ghost town.” But if you tell us we just lack vibrancy, that sounds like a problem that can be solved at any drugstore.

Along with a hotel, another nice thing to have would be a large set of casters that could be attached to the Polk County Convention Complex. If you could roll that thing up the hill and park it next to the Events Center, Johnson said, you would be much better off, convention space-wise. We’ve been pretending they’re already close together. “It hasn’t worked,” he noted.

His audience brought up responsible points and asked reasonable questions. And left the clear impression that this is going to take a while.

“The assumption is that there’s going to be an expansion (of Hy-Vee Hall),” Polk County Supervisor Angela Connolly said. “How are we going to do that?”

“We made a $217 million commitment (to build the Events Center),” said Supervisor Tom Hockensmith. “When is enough enough?”

“I’m reluctant to put taxpayer dollars in this,” said Mayor Frank Cownie. “I’d love to see a developer come in and say, ‘I’m going to do it.'”

Wouldn’t we all?