Shaner Hotels may have lost out on the contract to manage Durham's convention center, but they're being good sports about it.

They've even sent a letter of congratulations to the company taking their place.

"I admire your sales and marketing abilities," Durham Marriott General Manager Dick Brezinski wrote in an email this morning to executives of Global Spectrum, which is now in charge.

The convention center, jointly owned by Durham city and county, shares a building with a hotel owned by the Shaner company and operating as a Marriott franchise. Shaner had also managed the convention center since buying the hotel in 1996, but on Monday the city council and county commissioners voted to bring in new management in hopes of cutting operating deficits and attracting more business.

Shaner tried unsuccessfully to retain its management contract, but CEO Lance Shaner had said that if Global was selected his company would cooperate in transition and as building-mates. Brezinski reiterated that position in his email:

"We stand ready to help you settle in here, and we look forward to learning from your past experiences with Centers and nearby hotels. We will need help understanding how to go after groups together, and how to produce seamless successful events. ... Welcome to Durham," he wrote.

The convention center is currently closed for renovation. Global has one contract, effective as soon as the ink is dry and running through June 30, to run and market the center through the renovation and management changeover. Its long-term contract begins July 1 and runs up to five years.

The county commissioners and city council both voted unanimously this afternoon to hire Global Spectrum Inc. to run the downtown meeting facility for the next five years.

Their votes approved deal points and authorized County Manager Mike Ruffin and City Manager Tom Bonfield to conclude a contract with Global Spectrum, said Assistant County Manager Drew Cummings.

The convention center is jointly owned by the city and county.

Global Spectrum, a subsidiary of Comcast Corp., will be taking over from Shaner Hotel Group, which owns the hotel that shares the convention center’s building at Chapel Hill and Foster streets.

City and county adminsitrations began considering a change after the convention center ran annual operating deficits averaging more than $1 million over the past several years.

From correspondent Virginia Bridges

Despite the snow and ice, city and county officials made their way to City Hall this morning to discuss the future management of the Durham Convention Center located at the downtown Marriott.

Two companies are vying for the contract to operate the facility that has had an annual operating loss of about $1.1 million over the past five years, according to a city report.  Elected leaders from Durham County Board of Commissioners and the City Council will hear staff reports and from the two firms vying for the contract to manage the facility at the Joint City-County Committee.

Shaner Hotel Group, which has managed the Durham Convention Center since it bought the old Omni Hotel in 1996, is competing against Global Spectrum, to run the Convention Center, which is jointly owned by the city and county.

The Durham Civic Center (above) is getting a new name.

There's going to be a ceremony. With all kinds of official people on hand.

Note: This is the Civic Center off the lobby of the Marriott hotel at Foster and Chapel Hill streets (left), not the one at Foster Street and the Loop that you may remember as the Civic Center — where the Rotarians serve spaghetti and the Kiwanians flip pancakes. That's the Durham Central Civic Center, or it was before it went back to being called its original name, Durham Armory. (Not to be confused with the National Guard Armory, which is on Stadium Drive out by County Stadium.)

So this ceremony, Tuesday at 10 minutes after noon, will clear up all that confusion and usher in a new era as downtown can officially boast of the Durham Convention Center.

What's in a name, you ask? Well, the Convention Center, nee Civic Center, has $3.3 million worth of new carpets, new lights, new partitions, new HVAC, nicer restrooms and a spruced up hallway. The city and the county split the cost.

And that's not all: the Convention Center is due for about $7.5 million more in fixups, about $6.5 million to come from "unidentified" sources, according to the city's Capital Improvements Program.

And lest that be confused, the Durham Armory (formerly Central Civic Center, a.k.a. "Old Civic Center," right) is getting an upfit as well, about $2.3 million worth. It's been closed a good while, and the job is running a little behind — originally, it was supposed to be finished a year ago, but the city council reallocated the original money, so the work had to be re-bid after another appropriation was made. But it's coming down the home stretch, according to the CIP Web site (www.durhamnc.gov/cip/main.cfm).

Better be — week after next, it's reserved for the Kiwanis Pancake Sale.