Annual events buoy civic center through renovations
PHOTO/DARREN FISHELL
Crews from Cianbro Corp. work on renovations at the Free Street entrance of the Cumberland County Civic Center
Although the $33 million renovation of the Cumberland County Civic Center started last week, General Manager Steve Crane says the venue's business plan remains the same: book reliable annual events.
"We've tried to build a base of events that we can count on every year," says Crane.
What effect the renovation will have on the facility's marketability for new concerts and events, however, still remains to be seen.
Neal Pratt, chairman of the civic center's board of trustees, says marketing for concerts and other shows has not yet begun for the renovated center, but he expects that a few specific changes — like expansion of the loading dock — will make scheduling at the facility more flexible.
Currently, Pratt says the loading dock has limited how quickly the center can turn around events, which can cause touring shows to skip over Portland if the timing isn't right.
"We've gotten shows that are on tour who are available, say, June 25th but they know they have to get out of there by the 27th to be in Providence," Pratt says. "If you can't unload 15 or 16 tractor-trailers in a certain window of time, then they just have to bypass you."
In the meantime, as excavators dig into soil outside the building's Free Street entrance and the occasional drill buzzes outside of Crane's office, it has been a balancing act – so far, successful – to keep construction and events going, Crane says.
"We can generate income and do events and I think it's the best of both worlds for the moment," he says.
The Portland Pirates have temporarily moved to Lewiston's Colisee for six games, but are expected to return to the civic center for the remainder of the season in early November.
The first phase of construction, up through April 2013, focuses just on exterior renovations.
For 2013, regular events – like Disney on Ice and Sesame Street – are scheduled to go on as usual while full-scale interior renovations are held to a five-month schedule, from late April to Oct. 1. During that time, the civic center will close its doors but civic center staff will continue to work, a schedule Crane says he's pleased with.
"They started in a way that was the easiest and most expedient to get a lot of work done," Crane says.
Later this year, through the first phase of construction, the civic center is hosting what Crane says is one of the largest shows on tour: Cirque du Soleil.
As for the potential of the new facility to open Portland's doors to bigger tours and bigger acts, Crane says the other timeless variables of show business still reign.
"Who plays this building will be determined by a lot of factors with routing and date availability," Crane says. "Lots of forces go into why acts play where they play and I'm not going to prognosticate what will or won't happen with relation to the renovation — that will be determined by later factors."
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