Civic center task force to receive study today
Photo/Robert M. Cook
A report on renovating the civic center is expected today
As members of the Cumberland County Civic Center Joint Task Force anxiously await a consultant's economic analysis to guide their decision making, county and business leaders say a clear consensus is forming.
Assistant County Manager Bill Whitten believes the consulting firm and the task force will lean toward generating more revenue by adding club seats and skyboxes within the existing structure of the civic center. He does not believe voters will see any bond request asking them to add another 2,000 to 3,000 seats.
"In order to add seats you have to raise the roof and that will cost millions and millions of dollars," says Whitten, who also served as a civic center trustee for 12 years. For example, when Janet Marie Smith, the architect who helped the Boston Red Sox increase Fenway Park's seating, did a study for the civic center trustees last winter, her design added 740 seats at a cost of $41 million.
The issue of how best to renovate the 32-year-old facility has been a thorn in the county's side for nearly 15 years. Portland Pirates CEO and Managing Owner Brian Petrovek, also a member of the task force, says there have been 10 different studies from 14 consultants.
Whitten says selling naming rights for the facility will also figure prominently in this newest consultant's recommendations. Peter Crichton, Cumberland County manager, says that new revenue source could generate $2.5 million for a 10-year agreement at a rate of $250,000 per year. The civic center's annual revenue was $1.26 million in 2008-2009. Currently, the civic center seats 6,700 for hockey games and 9,000 for concerts and pumps up to $15 million per year into the region's economy.
Neal Pratt, chairman of the board of trustees and a task force member, also confirmed that potential revenue generators such as premium seating and naming rights could figure prominently, but the addition of up to 2,000 new seats "is not in play."
John Menario of Yarmouth, one of the civic center's trustees and a task force member, believes the final recommendation will also call for more docking space to better serve artists and concert performers. He says the civic center lost some acts such as Trans-Siberian Orchestra because the facility could not accommodate all of the group's equipment.
According to Richard Feeney, a Cumberland County commissioner, the task force is scheduled to receive a draft report from Brailsford and Dunlavey of Washington, D.C., today and the task force will then hold a conference call with the consultant in executive session on Friday. The final report listing the cost of the potential solutions analyzed by the firm may not come out until after Labor Day, he says. The final decision about what county voters will be asked to approve will rest with the county commissioners.
To make any potential bond issue more palatable to county voters, Crichton says the county commissioners could devote a portion of the $2.1 million in annual debt service on the $25 million county jail to the cost of the civic center renovation to lessen the amount needed from county voters. Crichton says the county will make its last payment on the jail, built in 1990, next year.
But Cumberland County Commissioner Malory Shaughnessy says convincing voters to approve any money for the civic center will be a tough sell.
"None of these facilities are money-makers. The real value is the quality of life that you are offering your citizens," she says.
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