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July 6, 2026
RHINELANDER – Large conference spaces have long been in short supply in Wisconsin’s Northwoods.
Lauren Sackett, chief executive officer of the Rhinelander Area Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center, said local leaders have been working to change that.
“I’ve been [with the chamber] for 12 years, so it is something I kind of spearheaded to try to bring to fruition,” she said. “Ourselves, we travel to conferences throughout the state within our own industry, and I always thought it would be great if we could bring one or two of them up by us.”
After hearing from both local stakeholders and event planners interested in the area, Sackett said the chamber decided to explore the possibility formally.
“It just made sense to try to see what we could do,” she said.
For the exploration, Sackett said the chamber – on behalf of the Rhinelander Tourism and Marketing Committee – commissioned a formal study by the North Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (NCWRPC).
According to the Rhinelander Conference Center Feasibility Study, published last month on the chamber’s website, the recommendation is to build a conference center in the City of Rhinelander with at least 11,400 square feet of leasable floor space, featuring:
- One multi-purpose space of 9,000 square feet, divisible into three smaller spaces of 3,000 square feet each, able to accommodate 500 attendees seated in crescent rounds, 600 banquet-style or 1,000 theater-style
- Enough space to allow for 45 exposition booths measuring 10 feet by 10 feet each
- 2,400 square feet of remaining breakout space that can seat 260 theater-style, which can be partitioned into four 600-square-foot conference rooms
- Potential partnership with an attached hotel
When factoring in additional space for circulation, utilities, a kitchen, restrooms and storage, the study concluded the total would be a 17,100-square-foot facility with an estimated cost of about $6.99 million.
Sackett said the purpose of the commissioned study was not to propose any specific amenities.
“What we did was a study that, essentially, if a developer or a hotel might be interested in building something like this, we have kind of laid that groundwork and done that research for them,” she said. “So, we aren’t fully proposing a facility. We’re just saying this is what we would like to see, [or think] should this happen.”
Though the region presently has spaces with capacities of about 300, Sackett said the Northwoods lacks options for larger events in the 500-1,000-person range needed for conferences, trade shows and/or expos.
“When we were talking [to the NCWRPC], our goal was to identify the gaps we might be able to fill, and have it be a facility you cannot find hyper-local here in the Northwoods,” she said.
Sackett said the prospect of such a facility has both the chamber and the regional business community excited.
“I certainly think we have the potential and ability to have a facility like this in our community,” she said. “We get calls and asks a lot about the potential of hosting meetings and events up here, so it would be really great to have that type of facility in our community.”
A city on the upswing
Sackett said optimism in Rhinelander has helped build momentum for a potential conference center.
“Oh, my gosh, so much is going on in Rhinelander,” she said.
Among the city’s more recent community infrastructure investments, Sackett said, are the Hodag Dome – “a 128,000-square-foot, inflated air-supported dome for athletics” – and Hodag Park, featuring an amphitheater, a public beach/boat landing, baseball diamonds and a kids’ play area with a splashpad.
“The community has been very positive,” she said. “Really, it’s a testament to the people. The people here in Rhinelander are doers and like to see growth, so we’ve had a lot of great success in the last few years.”
Sackett said the last five years also saw two new hotels built in the city, providing further evidence “Rhinelander has been on an upward trajectory and is continuing to grow.”
Tourism in the Northwoods, Sackett said, continues to drive that trajectory as “a core part of our economy.”
Further, the study shows continued growth in tourism, including a 3.7% increase in direct visitor spending in Oneida County from 2023-24, bringing total economic impact to $302.8 million.
Sackett said the chamber’s focus on tourism has generated strong results from leisure, outdoor recreation and, with the Hodag Dome, sports travel – yet they believed Rhinelander had untapped potential.
“We had a lot of discussions about how we can continue to differentiate our tourism market,” she said, “and one of those sectors we are kind of currently missing – though we have some – is meeting and business travel. It’s certainly something we can do more of.”
Filling regional needs
Recognizing the potential, Sackett said the Rhinelander Tourism and Marketing Committee voted to pursue the feasibility study “to at least start the conversation” and explore ways to sustain a strong tourism economy.
The study, which the chamber approached the NCWRPC about last year, cites a 2025 article, “Consider the Alternative,” published in The Meeting Magazine, which notes the growing popularity of conference destinations in smaller markets due to higher costs and increased competition for space at larger conference centers.
The NCWRPC suggests Rhinelander is a “third-tier” city suited for such a facility.
Sackett said the relative scarcity of facilities in the region further strengthens the case.
“There are not a lot of large spaces north of Highway 29 like this [would be], so maybe we’d be able to get people into a different part of the state/Midwest region a little bit more by having a facility like that up here,” she said.
Of the “many upsides” a conference center would bring to Rhinelander, Sackett said the economic impact would be considerable.
As part of its study, the NCWRPC examined the performance of such facilities in comparably sized cities.
The commission reported the conference center in Bowling Green, Kentucky – with a population roughly double that of Oneida County – for example, has an annual countywide economic impact of $25 million.
In similarly sized Schaumburg, Illinois, the study reports its convention center contributed $43 million to the local economy and $2.2 million in local tax revenue in 2023, largely from visitor spending, which is being used to help pay off the facility.
“We know [a conference center would] have an economic impact that will ripple through the community if we have more people here in that typical business, Monday-through-Thursday-type conference setting,” Sackett said.
The 2025 Oneida County Housing Study, a partnership between Oneida County Economic Development Corporation (OCEDC) and the NCWRPC, describes Rhinelander as an emerging “hub” of economic activity for the Northwoods, citing job growth in manufacturing, hospitality and retail over the past decade.
Though the concept of a conference center could meet local needs and build on the region’s positive outlook, Sackett said the final design would depend on the developer, hotel or other entity that takes the lead on the project.
Even the location, she said, would be left to the determination of the developer, though the study identifies five potential construction sites.
“They were proposed as potential sites because of their proximity to our current hotels or walkability to downtown and things like that,” she said. “They’re not set in stone by any means, but they were identified as good potentials.”
The full study is available at visit rhinelanderchamber.com.
What’s next
With the foundational research having “confirmed the concept of a conference center warrants further consideration,” Sackett said the municipality currently awaits a suitable developer or group to see the project through.
“At this point, we would welcome connecting with any potentially interested parties: a developer, hotel operator, investor, etc.,” she said. “We have got the data to start conversations, and we’ll connect with our economic development agency and our municipality to see if it’s a project that we can help move forward.”
For all the information the study provides, Sackett said it does not identify specific funding structures.
“The study did identify different tools communities have used elsewhere, whether it’s private investment and partnerships, a room tax or TIF funding grants,” she said. “There are different avenues, so any future proposal would need to have its own financial analysis, but there are different funding mechanisms that could help achieve that goal.”
Though the estimated cost of a conference center was “in line with what I thought it would be,” Sackett said she was pleasantly surprised by the dimensions the NCWRPC suggested.
“I wasn’t sure about the size/scope when I went into it,” she said, “so [the fact] that they thought we could host a facility of that size was exciting to see.”
With parking and other infrastructure also key considerations, Sackett said identifying a potential investment level is valuable for attracting interested developers.
Securing a developer to build a facility that “maximizes Rhinelander’s existing businesses and opportunities while drawing more visitors and spending to the area,” she said, will require addressing some concerns.
First, Sackett said there is the potential “sticker shock” of the investment – though the thorough figures of the feasibility study attempt to provide full context for the cost.
Second, she said, despite the COVID-19 pandemic casting doubt over the future of conferences and expos just six years ago, “it has rebounded quite a bit.”
“Having different, experiential-type conferences is certainly a little bit more trending now than it was,” she said. “So, being able to be in a space like the Northwoods of Wisconsin, where you don’t typically host a conference, could be an ideal setting for people, as well as other types of events and things.”
