A shaky economy has funds for convention center hotel projects drying up. Financiers are backing away from potential sites or seeking extensions to pony up cash pledged for headquarter properties. Some cities have been forced to open their centers' doors without prospective developers, while others have turned to public funds to make sure they'll have the necessary on-site rooms.Fort Lauderdale is looking for a new investor for its hotel adjacent to the expanded convention center, which is re-opening this month, after negotiations with a potential financier came to an end. Also in Florida, plans for a 350-room hotel next to the Palm Beach County Convention Center have been put on hold while the center is set to open next year. And the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority gave Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide until February 2003 to land financing for a $264 million hotel adjacent to the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, slated for a June 2004 opening."We believe that there is a significant amount of business out there that we could be generating if we had [a headquarter] hotel," says Nicki Grossman, president and CEO of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention Visitor Bureau. "There are a large number of groups that simply will not go someplace if they can't put their delegates, or certainly their board, in an on-site hotel." In Grossman's view, the current lack of a hotel has more to do with circumstance than the economy. "There were long, drawn-out negotiations with the developer who is now not going to be building the project. And I think we've missed opportunities with other potential developers." But for many cities, the economy has been the clear foe. Some have met that problem head on. "The City of Fort Worth has [provided] $2.6 million in funding for preliminary design and development work for a 400- to 600-room downtown convention headquarter hotel," says Greg Staley, director of communications for the Fort Worth Convention and Visitors Bureau. Austin also put up public funds to make sure its expanded convention center would have a headquarter hotel. The Hilton Austin, set to open in June 2004, was financed with $15 million in tax-exempt bonds.As for Greater Fort Lauderdale offering public funds for an on-site hotel, "The county commission had considered that," says Grossman. "It may be that the chance to go with private funds is out there. And I think this board of county commissioners is going to carefully examine what the options are."