Encore Boston Harbor Executive Director of Hotel Sales and Catering Joan Esneault, second from left, and other Wynn Resorts executives help Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria cut the ribbon on the new casino in June. Photo by Evan Richman, courtesy of Wynn Resorts

Everett’s big win landing the Encore Boston Harbor casino promises to be a gift that will keep on giving for many years to come, with the resort set to become a player in the competition to host corporate meetings and conventions.

That could spell trouble, not just for the aircraft-carrier-sized Boston Convention and Exhibition Center plopped down in the middle of the Seaport a decade ago by the late, great Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, but also the smaller Hynes Convention Center as well.

During a recent media tour of the Encore Boston Harbor, head of hotel sales and catering Joan Esneault was unabashed in laying out the draw the lavish casino’s expanse of meeting space has for companies looking to hold a meeting or conference in Boston.

The hotel and casino has more than 50,000 square feet of meeting space on a single level and, at more than 37,000 square feet, one of the largest ballrooms in the city. There are also several meeting and conference rooms that can be easily broken down into smaller spaces.

Among companies signing up for space is one that has long wanted to come to Boston but could not find the right place, Esneault said.

“There is no place in Boston like this,” she added.

Of course, Wynn Resorts is a casino company and Encore’s thousands of slot machines and gaming tables will be the main money-makers, for now.

Yet the corporate meetings business will be as major focus for Wynn in Boston as it is in Las Vegas.

While weekends will have more of an entertainment focus pitched at a wider audience, during the week the casino is booking corporate events, with the calendar already filling up into 2020 and 2021, Esneault said.

BCEC Struggles with Location

Esneault was also quick to say that Encore Boston isn’t out to steal business from the Hub’s two big convention centers, but rather sees its role as additive.

But the debut of Encore Boston comes as the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center struggles to keep its halls even partly filled after a decade and a half of trying – and failing – to play in the convention big leagues.

The massive Las Vegas Convention Center hosted 21,000 meetings and conventions last year, or just about one event for every person expected to attend one of the BCEC’s largest events this summer.

America’s major convention centers offer one-stop shopping for organizations looking to both have their meeting and have a good time. In the case of Orlando and Vegas, the two top convention destinations in the country, they also offer great weather as well.

Conventioneers in Boston have to work just to have a choice of restaurants, which can require a hike around the Seaport that is less than enticing during the colder months.

The older Hynes convention center in the Back Bay has long been better-placed, but its facilities are both limited in size and dated.

Encore Boston Harbor has more than 50,000 square feet of meeting space on a single level, and, at more than 37,000 square feet, one of the largest ballrooms in the city. Photo by Barbara Kraft, courtesy of Wynn Resorts

Casino Offers All-in-One Package

Enter Wynn Resorts’ Encore Boston Harbor, which will provide all restaurants, nightspots, gambling and other fun your typical convention goer would want, all under one roof.

The $2.6 billion casino has 15 restaurants and nightspots, many run by top names in the business and each with a different theme, with the club Memoire featuring $2 million in lighting and sound equipment, including an automated chandelier designed to rotate up and around the center of the dance floor.

There is also a 19,512-square-foot spa, health club, a health club and water taxi service to the casino using boats designed by a luxury yacht builder.

“It’s Vegas in Boston,” said Big Night Entertainment Group co-founder Randy Greenstein, whose firm owns and runs Memoire and another casino hot spot, Mystique.

And compared to the massive amounts of dead space you’ll find in the cavernous BCEC, or the Hynes’ aging conference rooms, Encore Boston wins hands down when it comes to aesthetics.

Art is prominently displayed in the casino, from the carrousel in the lobby made of 83,000 permanent botanicals and 11,000 “jewels” to Jeff Koons’ $28 million stainless steel sculpture of Popeye in the middle of a bustling hallway.

The casino has more than 61,000 flowers on its grounds and inside as well, along with thousands of shrubs and hundreds of trees. The BCEC has the much less lavish Lawn on D.

Wynn Pledges to Expand Further

Encore Boston’s weak spot when competing in the convention space is its limited number of hotel rooms – just 671 in the casino/hotel tower.

But it is probably only a matter of time before Wynn starts adding more rooms, with hotels part of a massive expansion plan aimed at creating one of the largest entertainment complexes in the Northeast around the resort.

The casino giant has already put its money where its mouth is, buying up $100 million worth of property nearby.

The lights aren’t about to go off over at the BCEC or at the Hynes.

Scott Van Voorhis

After all, both convention centers are state-subsidized, so they won’t be going out of business no matter how large annual budget deficits grow.

But with the opening of Encore Boston, the writing is on the wall: The future hub of Greater Boston’s convention and meetings business very likely to be in Everett, not Boston.

Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.