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Downtown Amphitheater


RALNATIVE

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True enough, but I wasn't commenting on the *particular* use so much as the fact that any use will have to deal with primary arterial roads on each side of that site. And from what I understand the amphitheater is a net loss until a sponsorship is obtained, so right now a parking lot, much as you and I both would not want one there, would be making more money. Does the extra money spent downtown due to people eating before and after concerts bridge that gap?....I am guessing no...what with $8 dollar beers and $5 waters sucking the money from people while they are in the amphitheater. I think the intangible benefits of image building probably are the big plus side....given that the image you want for downtown is entertainment mecca, which is of course debatable...especially by those who live near the fracas.

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To be clear, my earlier comments were not to say negatives about the amphitheater itself, just that certain types of shows (ie, amplified music) are slightly more suited than others (ie, spoken word). That's all....otherwise, I loved it.

...Does the extra money spent downtown due to people eating before and after concerts bridge that gap?....I am guessing no...what with $8 dollar beers and $5 waters sucking the money from people while they are in the amphitheater. I think the intangible benefits of image building probably are the big plus side....given that the image you want for downtown is entertainment mecca...

Well, after our show we saw tons of folks heading out on foot to the local bar areas. (We even spent several minutes trying to explain to a group of girls from Greenville how to find Busy Bee.) The venue only sells beer, wine and junk food, which isn't exactly for everyone. (For example, our group had a full meal plus cocktails at La Volta beforehand.) Plus the local parking decks that are usually free were charging their "event rates". And I even saw some patrons using the rickshaws, so that's money into those hard-working guys' pockets too.

Perhaps it still doesn't cover the costs, I dunno. But it's good for the city, IMO.

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Well, after our show we saw tons of folks heading out on foot to the local bar areas. (We even spent several minutes trying to explain to a group of girls from Greenville how to find Busy Bee.) The venue only sells beer, wine and junk food, which isn't exactly for everyone. (For example, our group had a full meal plus cocktails at La Volta beforehand.) Plus the local parking decks that are usually free were charging their "event rates". And I even saw some patrons using the rickshaws, so that's money into those hard-working guys' pockets too.

Perhaps it still doesn't cover the costs, I dunno. But it's good for the city, IMO.

Any entertainment or venue that can draws crowds downtown on a regular basis is a good thing for the city. I'm sure that we all would agree to that.

You just gave me an idea. Maybe i'll setup a hotdog and a burritto stand next to the amphiteater....

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Even with Starbucks being sort of hidden in the Marriott and facing away from the Amphitheater, its also seen business directly related to the Amphitheater. Even without a sponsorship, the effects of having crowd-drawing shows downtown will only improve with more residential, restaurants, and other businesses. The Amphitheater is one development in downtown that can actually also be a catalyst for attracting private development. I don't know the numbers but it seems like a good investment.

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Personally, I think that the more popular this downtown amphitheater gets, the more difficult it will be for city council to remove it once the convention center needs to expand. IMO, the convention center can just as easily expand upwards instead and leave the amphitheater there. We need things like this downtown and really, I think it is a good location for it.

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The current convention center will meet our needs for 20 years with no problem, maybe longer. The amphitheater will need replaced at that time so the things can be addressed at the same time. The convention center cannot go upward very much...a couple of oddly configured floors perhaps, but I doubt the safety factors were enough to allow minimum design to be met without major retrofits. I would sooner say tear down one of the two parking decks on Salisbury and build a combined hotel/convention expansion there with parking included so that Salisbury is like convention avenue or something with hotels all clustered there including perhaps a redone Sir Walter.

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The convention center will likely meet our needs for a lot longer than 20 years. As we've seen in the city's recent request to Wake County for additional marketing dollars, the financial projections of mid-range convention centers like ours assumed that convention centers of this size would not proliferate -- but they have, and now it's a buyer's market for convention planners. I'm not arguing that the convention center in Raleigh was a mistake; I'm glad it's here. But operationally it will be a drain on the city's budget for many years, if not forever. The evidence of that is beginning to become apparent. To double-down on the investment by expanding the convention center, in hopes of pursuing the really large meetings and trade shows, would be a big gamble.

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I am not schooled in this but imagine convention centers almost never turn a profit. They don't have to though. The property and sales tax generated by the Marriott and any other establishment that exists because primarily of the CC must be figured in, plus of course the incremental increases at numerous other businesses nearby....but we all know this....I just don't know why I hear so often that the CC being a net loss on its own books is such a big deal...you draw the box around all the associated items....

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Two reasons. First, the expected increase in tax revenues (both property tax base and ongoing sales taxes) from the CC was already "claimed" as a return on investment for the $200M to build it. You can't also count those as justification (rationalization?) for the CC operating losses. Second, there is relatively little control over how bad the CC operating losses will be year over year, and the city bears all the risk. From an operating perspective, the CC is merely a branch of the city. The CC operating losses flow through directly to the city's operating budget and thereby nullify other expenditures that the city wants to make. In other words, it's a zero sum game at the level of the city's operating budget, which must be balanced. The more the CC loses, the more the city has to cut (or raise revenues to offset).

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I know how to balance a checkbook. I more or less know how to balance a municipal checkbook too even though I am not an accountant or manager. My wonder is in whether the analysis of the balanced checkbook properly takes into account the impacts of this thing. This is obviously not an Enterprise fund and the Local Government Commission would not ever expect it to be self sustaining. Construction estimates have nothing to do with breaking it down into numbers for each FY. A quick example of what I am talking about is property tax for the Marriott. The CC enabled the difference between the value of the empty lot (million an acre or so for two acres) and the value of the 2 acres now....did not look it up but think its about 20M. So 18 million times approximate 1% tax rate (city and county combined) nets you $180,000 on the revenue side...assuming nothing would be on the block otherwise. An algorithm of some sort should be able to guess at sales tax based on number of conventioneers also to be added to the revenue side.

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Just keep an eye on how the CC operational deficits trend over time. If I recall correctly, the City said that operational deficits would be minimal in response to criticism from the John Locke crowd that the sky would fall. Well, neither is right... the operating deficits aren't minimal (otherwise the City wouldn't be asking the County for help), but the sky hasn't fallen yet. If the deficits go north of $10M a year, that'll cause some real pain and at that point the arguments about tax revenues from adjacent properties, sales taxes, etc won't carry the day.

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I am not schooled in this but imagine convention centers almost never turn a profit. They don't have to though. The property and sales tax generated by the Marriott and any other establishment that exists because primarily of the CC must be figured in, plus of course the incremental increases at numerous other businesses nearby....but we all know this....I just don't know why I hear so often that the CC being a net loss on its own books is such a big deal...you draw the box around all the associated items....

The way that I understand it, at least from the perspective of a bigger city, is to target the actual convention center to "revenue neutral", IOW, to flatline revenues versus expenses. And given the current convention market, that would be about the best you could do. Try to turn a profit, and you price yourself out of the market.

The thinking is that sales, lodging, and excise taxes from the spinoff sales to local restaurants, brewpubs, the obligatory "Starbucks", and other businesses such as (don't laugh), strip clubs, or cabarets as city hall prefers to call them, will provide the city or taxing authority with tax revenues to offset the operating loss, if there is one (and there usually is). It's a symbiotic relationship. The really big convention facilities have huge tourist components feeding into them, and the centers provide streams of conventioneers to supplement the business coffers. San Diego's CC feeds off of the SD Bay waterfront and the Gaslamp District, the Moscone Center in San Francisco off of the Embarcadero and Market St., New York's off of the West Side, McCormick Place off of the Chicago Loop, Miami Beach's from South Beach, and the Daddy of 'Em All, Las Vegas, from The Strip.

The problem for Raleigh is that not enough of that stuff is available downtown to: 1) to provide enough retail and entertainment to attract a "big" convention, 2) cast a big enough net of businesses to even collect the taxes in a concentrated enough area to justify the convention center at all, or 3) generate enough activity in its current paradigm to help spawn more of the types of businesses it needs to flourish.

I think Raleigh needs to focus on loss containment at this point in time,, and just wait and see if new and interesting projects like the Edison can create some more energy there. If Central Prison were redeveloped, that would help. (And that's all I will mention about that!)... :whistling:

What Raleigh was probably aiming for was to just get people down there in the first place, or I should say, more people that weren't already obligated to go down there anyway. That helps, and perhaps a smattering of localized or regional conventions or garden club type stuff will keep it afloat. Getting rid of the old one was worth every penny to build the new one, IMHO. But the CC is just one part of the puzzle, and just one of several "loss leaders" that are needed to infuse DTR with enough critical mass to at least make downtown an 18-hour a day destination, if not a 24/7 one. This includes the transit issue that will be needed to alleviate the need for parking, and to ease the way around for tourists who don't care to screw around with rental cars and parking deck fees. It includes public investment into cultural facilities (like the current amphitheater) to give conventioneers something to do while they are "stuck in Raleigh" (which I will be in October... :alc: ). In Denver, we have a massive theater complex two blocks away from the Colorado CC that derives massive cash influxes from conventioneers. Need I say it? The Denver Performing Arts Complex is another publicly supported asset of the type that DTR does not have much of yet. BTI Center/Memorial Auditorium/whateveritscallednow is a good start, but it can't support a dozen masters.

I realize that this is the Amphitheater thread, and everything ties back to my saying the Amphitheater is a good idea, but more of that type of thing is needed. An opera house perhaps? You already have the opera. More drama theaters, or even cinemas on top of a retail mall. A bowling alley for crying out loud. In essence, give potential conventiongoers the chance to do a few things they can't do back home in Kinston, or maybe even a few they can, but aren't at home to do it.

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