The Future of the Arena
Posted by DickH on 16 Jan 2009 at 09:04 pm | Tagged as: City Council, Lowell, Lowell-2009
“. . . I miss Paul Tsongas now more than ever. He was an old Lowellian with the foresight to help shape a modern day city and unite all factions for the common good. . . .”
Portion of a comment by “Right in Lowell” on an earlier post about the fate of City Manager Lynch.
The urgent desire of so many city councilors to rid the city of the Tsongas Arena and its $1 million plus per year drain on our finances is understandable. It’s also premature. As originally envisioned by Paul Tsongas back in the mid-1990s, the prime tenant of the arena was to be the UML RiverHawks with the rest of the calendar filled with concerts, trade shows, civic and university events.
An American Hockey League franchise was an afterthought – certainly a very welcome one – but an afterthought nonetheless. Lowell was still in the midst of the last major real estate collapse which, for those of you new to the city or too young to remember, was actually worse than our current plight (for the time being, at least). Paul Tsongas and many others, I think, gave more weight to the symbolic rather than the actual value of a professional franchise. Gaining an AHL franchise, it was hoped, would elevate Lowell into the upper echelons of mid-sized, post industrial American cities. The rush to achieve that goal pre-empted any serious effort to ascertain whether this region could support so many hockey games. Maybe no such objective study was undertaken because people knew what the answer would be.
The answer, of course, is that a professional hockey franchise is just not a good fit for Lowell. Through the past decade, there have been multiple owners (Behrakis/Campbell/McCallum – McCallum – NJ Devils), multiple management teams, multiple marketing strategies and through it all, a succession of incredibly talented, dedicated and hard working hockey players who each night rewarded fans with inspiring efforts on the ice. Through it all, nothing has succeeded in raising attendance to the level necessary to make pro hockey fiscally sustainable in Lowell. Anyone who continues to contend that better or more aggressive marketing will solve the AHL attendance problems isn’t dealing in reality.
So if it were simply a matter of signing over the arena to UML and ending the city’s seven figure annual subsidy of its operations, I might see the wisdom of that approach. But it’s not that simple.
What about the Devils’ lease which runs through next hockey season, ending in April 2010. It’s simply inconceivable to expect the University to take exclusive ownership of the arena while still bound by that lease and the operating deficit that accompanies it. In that case, what are the options? Is the city to transfer the arena but retain financial responsibility for any deficit through the end of the Devils’ lease? Or should the city negotiate an early end to the lease, an outcome that would certainly require a substantial payment from the city to the hockey team for giving up the final year of an extremely desirable arrangement? Or should the city unilaterally break the lease and subject us to a lawsuit with substantial damages?
Each of those options would seem to cost at least as much as the annual operating deficit, so wouldn’t it be more prudent for the city to just struggle through one more year of the Devils’ lease and then end that relationship cleanly and legally, opening the way for the city to make a fresh start with the arena in 2010? Without 40 anemically attended pro hockey games and associated practices, perhaps the cost of arena management and operations could be cut to a level that would make the deficit more tolerable. The city budgets $400,000 per year for the Lowell Auditorium and that never earns a peep of complaint out of anyone, so maybe that’s a more digestible number for operating the arena. But with all the additional open dates, more and diverse events could be booked, possible bringing the cost of operations to the break even point. It would also, finally, return the arena to the role initially intended for it.
Unless the Arena can be converted somehow to housing students and new classrooms, the university ought not to consider taking over the Arena no matter how much certain city councilors want to unload it on UML. With a tight budget, some 75 folks already laid off, a serious need for dorm space so as to grow student numbers and increase revenue, an equally critical need to continue to modernize lab spaces for state-of-the-art research efforts in nanotechnology, there is little need (if any) for UML to enter into running an arena which will drain dollars. A collaboration with the city continues to make sense and the City Council ought to take up the task of working with the Arena Commisison on the ballpark and arena and drop their rather childish efforts here.
On another note, it is so unbecoming for any city councilor to whine and whine about communications when with almost everyone of their spoken words/questions it is so obvious that they almost never carefully read the packet of materials they do get before each of their meetings. With the extraordinary economic times we are in to yelp at the city manager in this way belittles the office of councilor and ought to make the rest of us who live in Lowell worry for the city’s future. Now is not the time to divide the council in this way. Foreclosures, jobs disappearing, a potential serious cut in the schools budget, deteriorating roads and bridges and the rest of the infrastructure highly worn out, Hamilton Canal funding and private sector investment difficulties, empty food banks and too full homeless shelters - and you want to say you need more phone calls - crazy, crazy business here.
Can I just say that the UMass Lowell River Hawks beat Boston College last night, 4 to 3, in an exciting hockey game that earned prominent headlines in the papers? The River Hawks are taking on UMass Amherst tonight at the Tsongas Arena at 7 p.m. Come on down and fill the building, especially UMass alumni. Let part of our Greater Lowell economic recovery strategy be spending more home dollars at home. Money from capacity crowds helps the hockey program and Arena pay their way while we work on the long term solution. Each time there’s a full house everybody wins. Speaking of Paul Tsongas’s point of view, as Dick mentioned, it’s worth noting that Paul also talked about the social value of sports venues. He pictured the arena and baseball park as attractive community gathering places that would offer a “town meeting” atmosphere on any given evening.
Call me conflicted. As much as I don’t want to cut off my nose to spite my face by making a bad deal to unload the arena, I am now faced with the looming layoff of my co-workers endangering my safety. I have always been a staunch suporter of the arena from concept to reality and of the current management team, with whom I have worked.
Tough Call, but riding it out seems to be the only realistic course. Still, in all likelihood people who work for this city will suffer the loss of their job and the public will have less services at their disposal at least partially to maintain the operational costs of the arena. We all need to be cognizant of that.
I think UML would be nuts to take this thing off the city’s hands. If it was such a good deal it would have happened already.
I think college hockey has the potential to catch on and become the kind of “community event” that Paul alludes to in his prior post. The River Hawks home schedule of 17 games seems just about right. When you add in the 40 Devils home games, you’ve zoomed past the saturation point for hockey attendance. While the AHL is a much higher level of play, Hockey East (UML’s conference)has some of the finest college hockey in America. Plus, when you look at the teams in that conference: Northeastern, BU, UNH, Vermont, BC, UML, Maine, UMass Amherst, Providence and Merrimack and consider all of the graduates of those schools who live in greater Lowell, you have the added drawing power of local affiliations with each of the River Hawk opponents. Whether the arena is owned by the city or by the university going forward, promoting River Hawk hockey is the key to its success.
Jason - you’ve locked on to the terrible dilemma posed by the Arena. The $1 million plus the city contributes to its operation could be put to much better use in the short-term of this and next fiscal years by preserving core city services in the face of devastating budget cuts. But as I argue in my post, I think we’re locked into it because of the Devils contract. The operating cost has to be looked at as if it’s a capital expense, much like the annual payments on the new parking garage or the Hamilton Canal parcels. And as Bob Forrant reminds us in his post above, the University is plagued by the same fiscal illness that’s about to hit the city. Lowell isn’t facing layoffs because of a drop in property tax collections (although they’re dropping too), the cuts are coming in state aid because, as the governor said the other night, “we’re broke.” Last I checked, the University gets its money from the same place we get local aid, so UML has to be feeling the fiscal squeeze as much as the city which would make it stunning if UML could afford to take on the arena in the short- to mid-term.
So here’s another wrinkle. If the presumption is that we have to ride the lease out and hold onto the arena while we are doing because selling it isn’t a marketable alternative while the lease is held, then once the lease is out you’ve shown all your cards. That is, if the intention is to sell because of the financial drain, it completely undermines the city’s negotiating position on the sale. The potential buyer (UML presumably) can leverage the pressure to sell in the negotiations.
Does anyone else feel slighted that Marty moved to Andover? It’s not a good sign when the most well known native Lowellian and it’s biggest cheerleader for many years moves out. Good enough to work in Lowell but not raise a family. Maybe it’s the schools? Anyway I think the Arena can be successful after we get rid of the Devils. Less hockey equals more concerts etc. But only if a first class hotel is built next to it. This will benefit the city because it will 1. Be on the tax rolls 2. Attract conventions to be held at the Arena. 3. Increase the value of the Arena for a future sale to a private entity. 4. Create jobs(construction and sustainable) 5. Increase our hotel room inventory for when the Hamilton Canal District is realized.
UML will benefit by having a beautiful hotel practically right on campus for wooing world class professors,donors, parents and alumni.
It won’t be easy to support the Arena for now but in the long run will be worth it.