Civic center pushes to keep Pirates revenue
Photo/Heather Harvey
The Portland Pirates team generates about a third of the Cumberland County Civic Center's $1.26 million annual revenue
The owner of the Portland Pirates hockey team told Mainebiz this afternoon he is "optimistic" the team and the Cumberland County Civic Center Board of Trustees will reach an agreement to extend their lease beyond April 30.
Brian Petrovek, managing owner/CEO of the Pirates, also says news of a deal with the Times Union Center in Albany is just a rumor. "We have no tentative deal with Albany or Portland," he says.
Petrovek's comments could be good for the civic center and the city, which have benefitted greatly from having this American Hockey League franchise here for 17 years.
Neal Pratt, chairman of the civic center's board of trustees, says there is a lot at stake. Pratt says the facility, which has a capacity of 6,800 seats, generates $12 million to $15 million per year for the greater Portland economy.
Both sides hope they are moving closer to an agreement with the same anticipation hockey centers feel just before the puck drops. "The good news is we're still at it and we're still talking," says Pratt, who is also an attorney and a partner with Preti Flaherty in Portland. "We're hoping to work something out, sooner rather than later."
Pratt says the civic center, which is 33 years old, managed to stay in the black for six years until the struggling economy landed it in the red in 2009. The Pirates also had a tough year, he says, and both parties want to develop new ways to generate more revenue.
During the 2008-2009 season, the Pirates generated $384,278 for the civic center, a little less than one third of the facility's annual revenue of $1.26 million. (For more on the Pirates' economic impact, see "By the numbers," below). Petrovek says the Pirates and the trustees are discussing new revenue options such as naming rights for the entire facility or sub-naming rights, which could include placing a company's name on the ice surface or at the main entrance.
New revenues could come from a different approach to how the facility sells food and beverages that may involve holding more events and not raising existing prices.
According to Petrovek, the current negotiations for a lease extension are not tied to whatever future renovations occur at the civic center, though there has been talk of adding luxury seating and other fan amenities since the team's owners purchased the Pirates 10 years ago.
But Pratt says the trustees' goal to renovate the civic center figures prominently in the lease talks, but not knowing for sure what those renovations will be or how much future revenue they will generate makes negotiations more difficult. In December, the trustees hired a Washington, D.C., consulting firm to conduct an economic feasibility study for renovations, and have targeted 2012 for starting the project.
Meanwhile, the owners of the Times Union Center in downtown Albany continue to dangle their state-of-the-art facility in front of the Pirates like a carrot.
According to the Times Union Center's website, the facility's seating capacity ranges from 6,000 to 17,500. The building opened in 1990, making the Albany County-owned venue 20 years old. The center also has 25 luxury suites with 16 seats, cable television, private bathrooms and refrigerators.
The threat that a potential Pirates' move to Albany "creates an elephant in the room for the purpose of negotiations," Pratt says. "The hope is that New York doesn't end up giving the Pirates a deal they can't refuse."
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