Dallas is apparently planning a major expansion of the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in downtown.

Dallas Business Journal reports that the expansion will be paid for by a 2 percentage point increase in Dallas’ hotel occupancy tax, bringing the city’s overall hotel occupancy tax up to 17%.

The Convention Center is already quite large — nearly a quarter-mile in length!?! So, an expansion would make the place gargantuan!

However, just at a cursory overview, I believe the 2% tax increase could potentially pay for the expansion costs, considering the added accommodations revenues that would result. But, there are also other factors to consider — are there actually sufficient accommodations in the downtown area currently to handle the numbers of customers, if the Convention Center truly filled up after this expansion? The numbers of hotels located downtown and nearby are limited. And, can an expansion occur without damaging the appearance of the downtown — the current building is just a bit oppressively blocky, in my opinion.

Overall, this sort of development should be beneficial to all businesses in the area, however.