Photos by Sam Dean | The Roanoke Times

Antique enthusiasts search for treasures this summer during the Roanoke Valley Antiques Expo at the Roanoke Civic Center Special Events Center.

The civic center lost about 500 parking spaces when the special events center opened in April 2007. With more than an acre of exhibit space inside, the 75,000-square-foot structure is designed to compete for larger exhibitions. The civic center now has about 1,250 parking spaces, and some patrons often have to take shuttle buses from other parking facilities.

Last month, Miami rappers Rick Ross and Trina -- both Top 40 artists -- played a Saturday night show in the Roanoke Civic Center Coliseum.

But promoters sold only 578 tickets and gave away 478 more, so when the headliners on the 2008 Summer Jamz tour took the stage, they faced the echoing void of a 9,000-seat hall filled with fewer than 1,100 fans.

The show was just another bomb at the Roanoke Civic Center.

City officials hope that contracting the publicly owned facility's management to a private firm may change that. Two companies that manage facilities across North America have shown interest, and the city council may be asked to make a decision this fall.

Over the past several years, the Roanoke Civic Center has struggled to find consistent success. Three shows in early 2007 -- CeCe Winans, the Sisters in the Spirit tour and "Wild Women Don't Get the Blues" -- were all canceled because of low ticket sales. A fourth, "Flashback: The Classic Rock Experience," was canceled earlier this month. Others, such as 2008 Summer Jamz and funk act Maze, sold far fewer tickets than expected.

Underperforming shows don't hurt the city directly. The civic center collected its rent and box office fees from the Summer Jamz show.

"Even though we get our money for that evening, it really cuts into our potential to make additional admission taxes, facility fees, concessions, other ancillary revenue streams we miss because of low attendance," said Robyn Schon, the civic center's acting director.

And promoters may be less likely to book acts in the future, leading to fewer dates.

It's not just concerts. Minor-league hockey, basketball and indoor football teams have also failed at the civic center, leading to the loss of rent for dozens of events each year.

That lost revenue, coupled with debt service on the $14 million special events center built over two years, has left Roanoke taxpayers paying more than $1 million annually to keep the civic center afloat. The projected subsidy for 2008 is $2.7 million, according to the city's department of management and budget, largely because of increased debt service on construction on the special events center.

In search of new management

Subsidies aren't unusual for municipal facilities. Even Salem, with high-profile sports events and a steady stream of summer business from the Salem Avalanche, has run an annual subsidy of about $1.1 million for the past three years.

But Roanoke officials have taken action they hope will decrease that subsidy and make the civic center more successful.

In June, after a failed search for a new executive director, the city issued a request for proposals seeking a private company to manage the Roanoke Civic Center.

Schon said she'd like to see "a progressive company that has buying power."

"We need a company that has latitude and flexibility to do the deal in the best possible manner, as opposed to a government facility," Schon said. "We don't have the buying power because we can't take risks with the taxpayers' money to gamble on talent. ... A private company has got more power to book on a consistent level, and if they've got multiple venues, they can make a package deal."

The city received five responses to its request, which closed in July. The selection committee is negotiating with two finalists:

• Global Spectrum, an 8-year-old company based in Philadelphia that operates arenas, stadiums, amphitheaters, convention halls, ice centers and fairgrounds around North America. Its parent company is Comcast-Spectacor, which owns the NHL's Philadelphia Flyers and the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers.
• SMG, a 29-year-old company, also based in Philadelphia, which operates a similar array of facilities around North America and Europe. Its Virginia sites include the Richmond Coliseum and Charlottesville's John Paul Jones Arena, where it partners with Red Light Management.

Both groups, which confirmed the negotiations with the city, already have links to Roanoke.

Global Spectrum shares the same parent company as Ovations, which is contracted through 2017 to provide food and beverage services to the Roanoke Civic Center. Likewise, SMG will provide similar services to the Taubman Museum of Art in downtown Roanoke. Red Light Management, which has a contract to study the feasibility of building an amphitheater at the former Victory Stadium site in downtown Roanoke, would likely partner with SMG on booking acts for the civic center.

Representatives from both groups expressed enthusiasm for the Roanoke market, even with its challenges.

Global Spectrum spokesman Frank Russo said Roanoke is a secondary market, the company's specialty, for concerts, shows and other traveling events.

"You would not be a primary market, so what you need is the leverage of a company with multiple buildings to help you rise above the buildings you compete with now to get more events," Russo said. "I think that's the city's expectation: More events to generate more revenue with controlled expenses for a better bottom line."

Russo said that most of the company's arenas play host to university or minor-league hockey teams, which the civic center also has done in recent years.

And he touted Global Spectrum's corporate support, which could provide legal, insurance, risk management, human resource, marketing, public relations, sales, operations, engineering, parking, security, food and beverage, ticketing, finance and auditing services if necessary.

SMG is in many ways a similar company, with a similar system of support services. Spokesman Bob Cavalieri said most of SMG's clients are in "secondary and tertiary markets," and most of them are publicly owned.

Cavalieri said that SMG manages places that host NHL, NFL and NBA events, "but the vast majority of our accounts are in markets just like Roanoke. Each market is unique and different. You have a general management scheme, but you absolutely have to adapt your business plan to meet that situation."

Parking shortage may be key challenge

Roanoke does have a number of challenges.

Perhaps the most prominent is its parking situation. With four components to the civic center -- the coliseum, the performing arts theater, the exhibit hall and the special events center -- it happens that the center's approximately 1,250-space parking lot sometimes overflows. In those cases, patrons are asked to park at the public garage on Williamson Road and then are taken by shuttle bus to the event.

With construction of the special events center having taken about 500 spaces, parking has grown even tighter the past few years.

Civic center officials plan upcoming ads that depict pro-wrestling fans and classical music devotees sharing a shuttle bus to separate events at the coliseum and performing arts theater.

Still, Schon acknowledged the challenge, which was addressed in some of the management proposals.

The respondents "did address parking generally, in that they realize it's probably an issue," Schon said. "When they look at our budgeting, they can see how much we spend on shuttle buses."

There's also the question of what the Roanoke Civic Center's target market is.

Schon said the civic center's niche is that "we fill in the gaps -- midsize concerts and trade shows that other venues can't accommodate."

But it's hard to imagine a private management firm would settle for filling in other venues' gaps.

While it's tough to speculate on what a given company might do, Schon said the first step would likely be a market analysis: "I think they'll definitely explore what's out there and what they can put their paws on."

Any sort of management contract would be subject to approval by the city council, said Roanoke Assistant City Manager Jim Grigsby.

And that's where politics come into play.

The civic center came up as a municipal campaign issue in April, when then-Councilman Brian Wishneff said the city had created a "white elephant" by building the special events center there instead of at the Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center. In particular, he targeted the city's subsidy of the civic center, which at that point had grown to more than $3 million to support the debt service on construction of the convention center.

From 1994 to 2001, the subsidy hovered between $600,000 and $1 million annually. Since then it's risen because of expansion costs and the loss of revenue from its sports franchises.

Council members want that subsidy down. But they've got their own concerns as well.

Vice Mayor Sherman Lea, for instance, wants the civic center's management in local hands, citing EventZone and Jefferson Center's management as possibilities.

"I'm not sold on bringing somebody from out of town to run things, because I don't know that they have the real interest of the city at its heart," Lea said.

Lea, who organizes the annual Western Virginia Education Classic football game in Salem, said he would also like to see more amateur sports booked at the Roanoke Civic Center.

Councilwoman Gwen Mason is just looking for a good deal.

"Any private-sector provider of public-sector goods and services, I would hope, would meet the needs of our citizens and give the taxpayers a fair price," Mason said.

City officials will likely bring their recommendation before the council in early October or late November.

Mayor David Bowers, meanwhile, said he's less than thrilled with the architecture of the new convention center and office building.

"But having said all that, we're stuck with it and have to make sure it's going to be a successful operation," Bowers said.