ST. LOUIS — The embattled chief of the region’s tourism bureau will leave her job amid growing concerns about sales, staff morale and the management of the downtown convention center expansion.
Kathleen “Kitty†Ratcliffe, 65, will retire Aug. 31, roughly 10 months before her contract expires, the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission announced late Tuesday. A search for a successor is supposed to begin soon.
The decision followed a difficult few years for Ratcliffe as the face of troubled convention center expansion, a taxpayer-funded project so far over its original budget that it’s not clear it can be completed.
And Ratcliffe’s critics, who said the expansion plan was too small to make a difference and irresponsibly managed, welcomed the announcement.
“The CVC right now is a mess, and we need to fix it,†said St. Louis County Councilman Ernie Trakas, R-6th District. “This is a positive step.â€
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Next steps should include a state audit of the expansion spending, Trakas said.
Commission board members, however, praised Ratcliffe for 18 years of service. In a written statement, they recalled her work helping the local hospitality industry through the 2007-09 recession and its aftermath, the negative press after the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, problems with city crime rankings, and the pandemic, which effectively shut down the tourism economy.Â
“Kitty’s work ethic and dedication to advancing our tourism community are amazing, which is what the past 18 years have called for,†said Steve O’Loughlin, a major local hotelier and chairman of the commission board.Â
But in the past few weeks, the tide has shifted.
On June 1, it was reported that after Ratcliffe said officials would find at least $8 million in savings on the first phase of the expansion project in April 2022, overruns increased costs by $7 million, leaving nearly all of the city’s contingency funds exhausted.
On June 2, in a virtual meeting mistakenly left open to the public, a commission board member called for Ratcliffe’s removal, citing issues with sales and operations and trouble with staff morale. The board member declined to elaborate afterward.
But it was later reported that hotel room bookings secured by the commission here, a key measure of its sales team’s performance, remain well below pre-pandemic numbers even as other cities are reporting full recoveries. The St. Louis Area Hotel Association called the statistics “very alarming.â€
On Monday, the Post-Dispatch reported that despite years of work and political wrangling, the convention center expansion won’t make St. Louis more competitive in the way leaders once envisioned.
A review of floor plans for nine cities identified as competitors when the expansion was first planned indicates that, as the project stands now, the America’s Center will rank roughly where it did in 2016 in terms of exhibit halls, ballrooms and meeting room space.
Meanwhile, the St. Louis County Council had planned a hearing on July 9 where they intended to question convention center officials about the problems with the expansion.
Councilman Mark Harder, R-7th District, said Tuesday that’s still on, and Ratcliffe and others involved in the expansion project have been invited.
“I don’t think Kitty Ratcliffe will be there,†he said, “but hopefully others will be.â€Â
The Convention and Visitors Commission is expected to honor the remainder of Ratcliffe’s contract, which expires next June. A separation agreement was not immediately available for review.
Ratcliffe was paid $384,783 in 2022, the most recent year for which data was immediately available.