St. Clair County Hopes to Build Convention Center Like Suburban Collection Showplace

St. Clair County is looking to build a $9 million convention center, hoping it would bring economic prosperity to the area like does to Novi, the Times Herald reports.

In Novi, the city recently showed that it believes Suburban Collection Showplace is a valuable asset to the city by granting it a 100 percent tax incentive for the next six years to build an attached hotel.

"The Suburban Collection Showplace, other than , there's no other business that brings in 1.5 million people to the city of Novi, but the Suburban Collection Showplace does," said former Novi Mayor Dave Landry. "The economic impact is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. We've heard from businesses saying when there's a show in town, there's more customers at our restaurants, there's more people at our shops, it's very important to the future of the city of Novi."

Still, the decision to grant the tax incentive wasn't an easy one. The Novi City Council held several public forums and its own discussions to debate the issue. In the end, the incentive was granted with a vote of 4-2.

County commissioners will vote Wednesday on whether to move forward with St. Clair County convention center.