Cody, and to an extent Park County, miss out on many large group conferences and other events each year because there isn't a building in Cody able to handle 500-plus people.

Determining whether the Park County Complex may offer a solution to that problem is the first step of the latest multi-governmental push to look at an events center in Cody able to handle more than the 300 people that current spaces such as the Holiday Inn and the museum are limited to.

“We’ve talked about opening up the middle and top floors of the complex for 500 plus groups — it wouldn’t necessarily compete with existing operations,” said Cody Mayor Matt Hall, who was joined by Buffalo Bill Center of the West Director of Revenue Bruce Sauers and Park County Travel Council Executive Director Ryan Hauck in presenting to commissioners.

Sauers, who is also on the board of the group that puts on the Winchester Gun Show each year in Cody, said the group could’ve added another 50 tables if they had the space. Now, the show will need a new venue regardless in a couple of years because Riley Arena will no longer be available due to a plan to keep the ice down for most of the year.

“We feel like this is an opportunity,” Hall said, noting that a new Cody convention center would impact not just Cody but Powell and the whole Big Horn Basin to an extent. “It would be a real opportunity to do something that would impact the whole area.”

Sauers said many of the people who come to conferences in places like Cody are also apt to come to town a few days early and stay a few days after, in large part to take advantage of attractions such as Yellowstone National Park.

He said people with SHOT Show, the massive firearms manufacturer trade show in Las Vegas, are interested in holding a trade show in Cody, but they would want 500-700 people to be able to come.

“I think there's an opportunity we may be missing,” he said. “A larger capacity conference center would be beneficial to the community at large.”

The county acquired the more than 116,000-square-foot building and the 22-acre campus from Marathon Oil Company in 2005. While the ground floor is largely taken over by the Cody Library, the upper two floors have seen a variety of organizations rent suites from the county, including Northwest College’s Cody campus and the Department of Family Services.

Commissioner Lloyd Thiel said that before a committee was formed, he wanted to have a structural engineer go through the building and determine its viability for renovation and its capacity to hold more than 500 people.

Commissioners agreed to have the county engineer look into the cost of setting that up. Brian Edwards predicted it could be done for roughly $10,000.