After 20 years in the newspaper business, my gut tells me to be skeptical of the approach being taken by the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority to what could be the largest public works project in Boston since the Big Dig.

The agency is halfway through a year-long review over whether to embark on a massive expansion of the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center.

But questions regarding how much the project will cost and who will pay for it, rather than being front and center, are being pushed off until a later date.

Given a price-tag that could easily hit $1.5 billion, maybe it’s a discussion worth having now and not two or three years down the line, after the addition is half-built and the public is outraged over the mounting cost?

But convention authority officials today are clearly intent on focusing on the big picture of why an expansion might be needed, not how much it will cost.

“You can sit back and do nothing, but I think that is a loser’s strategy,” said James Rooney, chief executive of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority. “We are trying to grow the meetings business. You don’t do that by sitting here and hoping the people come.”

The Blink Of An Eye

The deliberations over the future of the convention center, undertaken by a panel of top businessmen, union leaders and elected officials, have pretty much been a sleeper as far as media coverage goes.

But it’s a discussion that should be getting a lot more attention given what’s at stake here – a potentially vast mega-project that could hit everyone from tourists to hotel owners in the wallet.

The convention authority is looking at three major projects all at once, each one a serious undertaking.

First there’s the expansion of the relatively new Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in South Boston, one that could double its size with new meeting rooms, exhibition space and a 21st-century auditorium.

Given the current BCEC cost $800 million to build, the expansion could total that amount as well, according to James Kirby, president of Boston-based Commercial Construction Consulting.

But for the expansion to work, there would need to be hotel rooms for all those added conventioneers. With hotel development having ground to a halt, the convention authority is also studying whether to finance the construction of a new, 1,000- to 1,200-room hotel, potentially the largest ever built in the Hub.

That would add several hundred million more to the tab, according to Kirby.

Finally, if that were not enough, the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority is exploring whether to double the size of the Boston Common Garage, adding 1,300 parking spaces underneath the historic park.

Kirby pegs that project at $130 million.

“You could be at $1.5 billion in a blink of an eye,” Kirby said.

Stuck With The Tab

Yet amazingly, the convention authority isn’t putting up any potential numbers for discussion right now.

A panel of business and union leaders and elected officials assembled by the authority is halfway through a year-long review of whether a massive expansion of the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center is even needed.

There’s lots of discussion on what Boston needs to do to stay competitive with other top convention cities. Overall, our local convention center officials contend we need more space to compete for the biggest shows, and they may be right. But at what cost?

James Rooney, chief executive of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, said no official cost estimates will be released until the end of the year, when the panel assembled by the convention authority makes its recommendations on a potential expansion.

In this case, it’s not just the price that’s at issue, though that’s substantial enough. Also in question is who will pick up the tab for a project that could put Boston’s already-large new meeting hall to shame.

The gist seems to be that tourists and the city’s battered hotel industry, struggling to emerge from the worst downturn in decades, will likely foot the bill.

Options include boosting the local hotel tax, already raised previously to pay for the new convention hall, as well as adding on to a surcharge on car rentals and on trolley and duck boat tours, Rooney said.

Some potentially risky assumptions are also being made. One is that the new hotel will essentially pay for itself, even if business is slow during the first few years.

But if it doesn’t, you and I will be picking up the tab. The same assumption, in turn, is being made about a possible garage expansion.

Déjà vu All Over Again

Maybe the most maddening part of this all is that we have been here before.

Back when planning began on Boston’s new convention center in 2000, there were serious early warning signs of an impending budget blowout.

One of my first stories when I began at the Boston Herald was on how skyrocketing steel prices might jack up the cost of the new hall. It did not require any serious sleuthing – Chinese demand was pumping up prices just as convention authority officials were getting ready to buy lots of steel girders.

At the time, my questions were dismissed as “premature” or “much too early to talk about.”

That is, until January 2001, when convention authority chair Gloria Larson shut down work on the project to get a handle on a looming $100 million cost overrun.

Luckily, the new hall got back on track after some last minute cuts and some 11th-hour accounting magic.

Still, there’s even more at stake this time around, given the massive scope of work we are talking about.

Now is the time to be talking about the costs, not later.