Charlotte Bobcats Arena

[mediamongrel]

Funny how the Charlotte Coliseum will be closing soon after only 17 years, but the Cricket (Independence) Arena will still be in operation. Both are in pretty rough areas to commute to, but the Cricket Arena houses concerts that wouldn't be able to fill up the Charlotte Coliseum. Otherwise, I find it odd to close the Charlotte Coliseum first, although the Cricket Arena will probably follow suit. I remember someone telling me they saw KISS with Ted Nugent for $7 at the Independence Arena in 1977, ahhh those were the days! Nowadays, if you go to see the Rolling Stones (who arguably look worse than KISS did with makeup) you need to come up with at least $150. What's up with that???

[dubone]

i would seriously not be surprised if they try to put some advertising space on the roof, primarily the logo of the naming rights purchaser.

[monsoon]

Whether you disagree with the city council or not, this is something that is good...

*The city no longer carries the burden for operating the arena if it goes into the red.

*The mistake of putting the coliseum in the middle of the "suburbs" is fixed (though why Raleigh repeated it is a mystery to me)

*Uptown will get new attractions and nightlife will improve (ie. EpiCentre)

*We are more attractive to large conventions

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The risk excuse is a red herring. How many years of loses would it take to equal $100M of tax payer money?

I never considered it a mistake to locate the facility off Tyvola road. It is a good locale for moving tens of thousands in and out of an event. Especially if that event takes place during business hours.

It has never been shown that placing an arena downtown spurs development. In fact quite the opposite happens because you have blocks of land devoted to something that stays closed most of the time.

[monsoon]

That has nothing to do with it. The coliseum is being torn down because it was part of the deal the city made with the NBA to lure another team here.

The city gave away the coliseum and land to the Banks and Duke Energy to pay them back, in part, for the $100M loan they gave the Bobcats. They don't need a stadium so it is going to be torn down. The loan money goes to the Bobcats, the city is responsible for paying the note. Your tax dollars at work.

[dubone]

i have no idea whether it breaks even with the tremendous public outlay, but locating the arena downtown certainly has a major impact on economic activity downtown. The primary reason is that it brings and keeps people downtown for an entertainment event. When people are in the process of entertaining themselves, they are in a social context and are more likely to spend their money. Uptown workers will stay uptown for those events, and will spend their money at the bars and/or restaurants. Out-of-town fans will get to experience downtown charlotte, and will get to wander around and find places to grab food, drinks, and merchandise (epicenter or overstreet) before and after the event. Suburban charlotteans will have a reason to come downtown for the same.

Again, it may not really be worth $260m (or whatever it ended up costing)... but there is definite value in have 10-20k people wandering around downtown before and after those events. At tyvola, they will walk through just a parking lot and drive out in traffic with everyone else... and go home, or stop by mcdonalds on their way. Downtown, many will wait out the traffic at a small business or restaurant or other social venue. The businesses downtown need those customers to be successful.... and when downtown businesses are successful and have foot traffic, other small businesses start to be built.

It wil be much much better for downtown than the parking lot/parking deck use that previously operated on the land that the arena is built on.

also, mediamongrel... the streets downtown already handle significantly more traffic than will be needed for bobcats games and other events. (although i concede that some events might overlap rushhour, which will cause some congestion on some streets). Many customers, though, will walk from the towers, or take transit... the beauty of a grid is that the many small streets can handle significantly more traffic as everyone has dozens of options to get where they need to go, rather than a single monopolistic thoroughfare.

[fromdust]

neo was saying earlier that the typical person in charlotte was opposed to anything that resembles a "big city", and doubts that even 1% of the pop. regularly goes to dt. i don't know what the population is like, never been there. but i do know here in okc we DO want to be one of the big cities. we would love to have a pro team. we built an arena downtown praying it would land us an nba or nhl team. hasnt happened yet. and i belive some of you are saying its not good to build it in your dt. there are 2 arenas in dt okc sitting right beside each other one with seating for 14,000 and the newest for 20,000. both are always booked with events. all these seats are bringing in millions for the city, new hotels, more entertainment options etc... in my opinion putting it dt can only help.

[reverbandwhiskey]

"Hopefully most people will park away from the arena and take the Gold Rush or trolley.

Eventually, people will be able to park at 485 and ride the train in."

Neither the Gold Rush or the Trolley have the capacity to carry any signifigant amount of traffic to the arena.

[jb4563]

Whether you disagree with the city council or not, this is something that is good...

*The city no longer carries the burden for operating the arena if it goes into the red.

*The mistake of putting the coliseum in the middle of the "suburbs" is fixed (though why Raleigh repeated it is a mystery to me)

*Uptown will get new attractions and nightlife will improve (ie. EpiCentre)

*We are more attractive to large conventions

[mediamongrel]

A mistake of putting it near the suburbs? I see your point, but how about the mistake of putting the new arena around an area that has all one lane roads. Talk about a mistake. Wait until the nights when the Bobcats play weeknight games and try to find a way around the traffic. Charlotte always does things in reverse order. Also, if they can tear down the Coliseum, how come they cant find the money to tear down the COUNTLESS empty buildings on Independence and South Blvd. that arguably make the city look worse than an empty Coliseum ever could? Charlotte never thought out its road problem, and if they build more roads now it will not ease traffic, it will just lead to more people driving on them. Think about how they will get an average of 15,000-20,000 people to the Bobcats' games on those small roads surrounding it!

[jb4563]

A mistake of putting it near the suburbs?  I see your point, but how about the mistake of putting the new arena around an area that has all one lane roads.  Talk about a mistake.  Wait until the nights when the Bobcats play weeknight games and try to find a way around the traffic.  Charlotte always does things in reverse order.  Also, if they can tear down the Coliseum, how come they cant find the money to tear down the COUNTLESS empty buildings on Independence and South Blvd. that arguably make the city look worse than an empty Coliseum ever could?  Charlotte never thought out its road problem, and if they build more roads now it will not ease traffic, it will just lead to more people driving on them.  Think about how they will get an average of 15,000-20,000 people to the Bobcats' games on those small roads surrounding it!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hopefully most people will park away from the arena and take the Gold Rush or trolley.

Eventually, people will be able to park at 485 and ride the train in.

[monsoon]

When a similar debate was going on with the Panthers stadium. The boosters for putting it downtown made very similar claims. "It will bring all kinds of entertainment and retail business to the area.", "Thousands will stay after work and spend money.", "It will increase tourism".

None of it happened and I predict the same for the New Arena.

Study after study of what really happens around these places indicate they do just the opposite of the above, ie. they hurt economic development. First surrounding businesses do not benefit because most people go directly to the events inside and spend their money inside, attend the event, and leave. Second you have acres of unused building most of the day that could have been devoted to other uses.

This is the reason you have not seen businesses open on the square blocks of land that surround the Panther's stadium. This despite it being more than a decade that it opened and we have had one of the biggest growth periods in DT charlotte's history.

[dubone]

"Hopefully most people will park away from the arena and take the Gold Rush or trolley.

Eventually, people will be able to park at 485 and ride the train in."

Neither the Gold Rush or the Trolley have the capacity to carry any signifigant amount of traffic to the arena.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

True, but a significant percentage of our bus fleet stops at the CTC, which is ~30 feet from the arena's front door.

The arena location is probably the most transit-supported location in the city.

[skysdalimit]

When a similar debate was going on with the Panthers stadium.  The boosters for putting it downtown made very similar claims.  "It will bring all kinds of entertainment and retail business to the area.", "Thousands will stay after work and spend money.", "It will increase tourism". 

None of it happened and I predict the same for the New Arena. 

Study after study of what really happens around these places indicate they do just the opposite of the above,  ie. they hurt economic development.  First surrounding businesses do not benefit because most people go directly to the events inside and spend their money inside, attend the event, and leave.  Second you have acres of unused building most of the day that could have been devoted to other uses. 

This is the reason you have not seen businesses open on the square blocks of land that surround the Panther's stadium.  This despite  it being more than a decade that it opened and we have had one of the biggest growth periods in DT charlotte's history.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, I agree to a certain extent. But then again Panthers games are on Sundays in the middle of the afternoon. The next day is a work day, so not a whole lot of people stay after at restaurants and bars. Then again, a whole lot still do. I'm sure uptown restaurants see a big jump in clients on game days. And also there are only approx 8-9 home games each year, so that doesn't really provide alot of opportunities for post/pre-game munching at the restaurants and businesses. With the Bobcats, while having smaller seating capacity, will be on nights. Some will be weeknights, true, but others will be weekend nights. So that = alot of people partying and doing stuff afterwards uptown. Not to mention there are at least 40+ home games each season. So I actually do think this will significantly add to people uptown on nights.

[dubone]

i see your points, monsoon, but i think there are is a huge difference between an arena, which has uses for many different kinds of events, and a single-sport stadium. The arena will be used on a significant percentage of nights throughout the year. Even if it sits there empty during the day, and has 10-20k people in it half the nights of the year, it is a vastly more economic-generator than parking lots, which would have stayed the use on that land for easily another 5 or 10 years, imo. Those lots are "used" during the day, but not by people, and are empty at night, and the people that walk to and from them are even less likely to stop at a shop or restaurant than those heading to a concert or ballgame.

Football is only really played on the weekends, so the proponents saying that people will walk from work is rather silly, as corporate jobs are rarely performed on weekends. That said, the Panther's Stadium was put on a location that was a contaminated brownfield, which was unlikely to get another use. By putting it downtown, existing parking facilities were able to be reused, which eliminated the need for a massive suburban parking sea around the stadium, existing road capacity was able to be reused, and while it certainly didn't spur new buildings around it, it does bring people downtown before games as bars and restaurants are always packed downtown around games.

So, not only do i believe that locating the panthers downtown was a good thing, but even more so for an arena designed to blend into the urban context and holding many more events schedule to complement those of the uptown workers.

[atlrvr]

When David Furman and Afsin Ghazi both say that the new arena played a large part (almost the exclusive reason for Ghazi) in investing several hundred million dollars in downtown, I think the economic development debate has been settled.

Sure, we would have eventually gotten high-rise condos at some point....but by starting it several years earlier, we are reaping several years of additional tax base for every new project......how many years will it take to equal $260M? Several decades for sure, but as long as we are improving the urban dynamic of the city, bringing retail, offering transit supportive ammenities, then I think we are heading in the right direction.

[dubone]

I drove around the arena today. It really appears like the outside of the building is 99% done.. just some random pieces are missing. They are now adding components like the structures for the billboards. They are also now working on the sitewalks and landscaping. The bricks are delivered for the Trade St sidewalk, they are pouring the sidewalks on the Caldwell and 5th sides, and have already planted the trees and are doing the landscaping along Caldwell. I also noticed they have put up the first colorful parts for the 4 art columns by the entrance.

As we are nearing the final deadline, it is no mystery that it will be done soon, but it is still rather cool to see them putting in finishing touches. Occassionally when i drive by, it is strikes me as weird that it is a reality. I guess i look at and imagine renderings so much that it is just weird to see how eerily identical the final reality is to the original reality. It is somewhat like a deja vu experience.

[poplife88]

Does anyone know what the retail is going to be on the Trade St. side of the arena?

[A2]

This might have already been known, but I thought I would add a link regarding the LEVY deal for the Charlotte arena.

http://www.cgnad.com/default.asp?action=article&ID=211

A2

[f0xym0p]

This might have already been known, but I thought I would add a link regarding the LEVY deal for the Charlotte arena.

http://www.cgnad.com/default.asp?action=article&ID=211

A2

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Darn. I was hoping ARAMARK would get it so I could potentially get free tickets.

[Sabaidee]

I would prefer Compass over Aramark, my school has Aramark under contract and I hate their service.

[dubone]

compass is based here, so it isn't surprising that at such a politically visible civic project like the arena, the "local" company was selected. who knows... maybe with compass' afiliation with J&W, some students will be able to be part of their activities at the arena.

[swh1972]

Is anyone aware if there are plans to develop the lots between Fifth and Sixth next to Imaginon. It looks like they are being used by the Arena contractors currently, but was curious if there were plans to build something there other than an Arena surface lot.

[A2]

They were going to be condo's. But now instead will be surface lots. Atlrvr mentioned this somewhere in another thread, but can't remember where. I think you are talking about those pork chop shaped lots, right???

A2

[swh1972]

Yes...never thought of them as pork chop shaped before, but I guess I will now.

Hopefully someone will develop these in the future.

Thanks for the info.

[A2]

I think with everything happeing in that area of town it won't be too long before we see renewed interest in those lots.. I would say give it 12-24 months before you see some type of proposal. Heck, if I were a developer, I would love to maximize my returns, and build verticle to tap into the hot condo market happening right now. Plus, the owner of the site has the advantage of being a few blocks from the square and directly accross from the arena.

A2