Convention Center Executive Gets Top Spot
This article appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer on June 19, 2008.
by Linda Loyd

The No. 2 executive at the Convention Center, Ahmeenah Young, was named No. 1 yesterday and hailed as the best person to manage the growing center's sometimes fractious leadership and operations.

Young, 60, is the second African American woman to run a convention center in a large U.S. city. The other, Carol Wallace, heads the San Diego Convention Center.

"She understands conventions. She knows the industry," said State Rep. Dwight Evans, who worked with Young in the 1980s at the Ogontz Avenue Revitalization Corp., which Evans founded. "If you look at her resume and compare it with predecessors, there has not been anybody who's had such extensive experience in the hospitality industry."

Her immediate predecessor, Albert Mezzaroba, 43, a lawyer and political ally of State Sen. Vincent Fumo, said that "it's time to move on." He said he planned to return to private law practice and probably would announce which Philadelphia firm he would join closer to the time he steps down in 60 days.

Gov. Rendell, who was not present at the announcement gathering, had long sought changes in the management of the center, which is undergoing a $700 million state-funded expansion and will face acute pressure to thrive in a tighter national convention market. He had wanted a professional convention manager, such as the local firm SMG, to be brought in to run the place and help oversee expansion.

Rendell, in a statement read at the gathering by center chairman Buck Riley, said: "Although I was opposed to Al Mezzaroba's appointment initially because I believed he had no experience in running a Convention Center, I believe he did a solid and commendable job under very difficult circumstances," Rendell said. "Under his leadership, the labor situation improved and the center has paved the way for a difficult expansion initiative."

Riley, in announcing the succession, said: "It's somewhat of a melancholy afternoon. . . . All of us are sorry to have Al Mezzaroba leaving."

Mayor Nutter, who worked with Young when she was chairwoman of the Convention Center, said Young's name was on a plaque on the facility that opened in 1993. "She was with the Convention Center before there was a Convention Center."

Tom Muldoon, president of the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, a separate marketing agency, noted that Young had worked with many of the center's controlling officials - including the mayor, governor and legislators and Council members.

"She is extremely well-liked," Muldoon said. "Because you are dealing with a public building, and you are one of the principal faces of Philadelphia to the public, I think she is very appropriate moving into that slot."

An ebullient Young told a crowd gathered in the center's lobby that "this is a wonderful day."

"We are going to build this expansion," she said. "And then we're going to treat customers better than their parents ever treated them."

Afterward, she said she was so grateful for the opportunity and vote of confidence that "I'm doing cartwheels in my heart."

Young grew up in South Philadelphia, graduated from St. Maria Goretti High School and attended Temple University, leaving in her senior year.

She joined the Convention Center in 1987 as director of affirmative action, later becoming senior vice president of sales and marketing. She left to become a vice president of SearchWide L.L.C., a hospitality-industry executive-recruiting firm, and later became chief executive of the Independence Visitors Center.

About 2005, she returned to the Convention Center to become vice president for external affairs. In October, she was given additional operating responsibilities that belonged previously to chief operating officer Dittie F. Guise, who had left.

Young also sits on several boards, including Art Sanctuary, MANNA, North Philadelphia Health Systems, and the Philadelphia International Airport. She is the co-owner of North by Northwest, a restaurant, musical and performance venue in Mount Airy.

Young's salary has not yet been set, but it will be "essentially" what Mezzaroba has earned, $249,000 a year, Riley said. Mezzaroba's contract does not end until 2010, but he said he would not receive any extra financial settlement for leaving early.

The expansion was originally budgeted at $700 million, but will rise because of delays over control, minority hiring, and increased construction costs.

The project executive, Joseph J. Resta, said a "letter of intent" was sent Tuesday awarding the first construction phase to the low bidder, a joint venture of Daniel J. Keating Co. and Keating Building Construction of Philadelphia. Keating bid $154.89 million.

Bid packages will go out next week for the second and final construction phase, which will include installation of elevators and escalators. The deadline for those bids will be August, Resta said.

The expansion, scheduled for completion in early 2011, will be funded by the state under a complex operating agreement involving the city, state and Convention Center Authority.

After a decade of planning, designing and debate, the project is being built with revenue from the state's slot-machine parlors. The Pennsylvania legislature gave final approval last July.

The expansion, which will extend the Convention Center from 13th Street to Broad Street, between Arch and Race Streets, will give the facility about a million square feet of exhibit and meeting space, a 60 percent increase.