County ponders ‘convertible’ arena

Retractable-roof option considered

FORT COLLINS – A Canadian firm that makes hockey-arena construction its core business has stepped toward building a multipurpose Larimer County fairgrounds arena that could feature a retractable roof.

The arena, if built as proposed in one option, would roll several features of the fairgrounds master plan into one, grand-scale facility that would seat 6,500 people for events ranging from rodeo to minor-league hockey to concerts under the stars.

International Colliseums Co., a Toronto-based design-build firm that has constructed sports complexes throughout Canada, the United States and Japan, submitted the proposal to Larimer County officials, calling it “an unprecedented facility – the first of its kind in the world.”

“I think it’s a good plan in most ways,´ said Robert “Doc” Cheney, chairman of the Larimer County Fair Board, the public body managing the voter-approved, $70 million fairgrounds project. “We have to look at what is going to pay the bills, and this is a proposal that seems to have a good possibility of paying for itself.”

The county and ICC estimate costs of the project, on the east side of Interstate 25 about midway between Fort Collins and Loveland, at between $15 million and $20 million. The county’s timetable for the fairgrounds project calls for the events center – the heart of the complex – to be operating by summer 2003.

ICC not only builds hockey and other sports arenas, but has an interest in the Western Professional Hockey League, a minor-league system with 15 franchises scattered throughout the southwestern and southern United States.

The group “assures a hockey franchise as a major tenant in Larimer County’s multipurpose events center for the duration of ICC’s involvement in the operation of the facility,” according to the proposal filed with the county. A hockey franchise would play 38 dates yearly, and provide much of the center’s financial base.

ICC managing director John Akerley, a Canadian citizen who runs the company’s U.S. operations from a Phoenix office, was in Fort Collins and Loveland last week to pitch the plan personally to county officials and fair organizers.

“It’s plain to me that to be successful with this, two things have to happen,” Akerley said. “First, we have to consider the traditional fair interests, and remember where we came from, and that means agriculture. Second, we have to embrace the new. We need to innovate to produce revenue so that the facility pays for itself.”

With the hockey franchise pulling the winter load, and open-air concerts drawing capacity crowds during the summer, Akerley said the project would operate under ICC’s management without public subsidies.

That prospect fills two slots on the county’s wish list for the fairgrounds project, said Chip Steiner, a Fort Collins consultant who holds the contract for managing bids on the construction process.

“The county has two objectives with this kind of a partnership,” Steiner said. “The first is to eliminate any subsidy by the taxpayers, and the second is to get out of the business of managing the events center. If, through a partnership like this, we can generate a revenue stream then we have taken care of those.”

Because of the county’s unorthodox bid and qualification process for fairgrounds contractors, firm figures on the cost of the Larimer County Omniplex – as ICC calls the project in its proposal – are not available.

And the ballpark estimates depend largely on whether the unique roof option becomes part of the plan. The base cost would be $15 million to $20 million, Akerley and Steiner said, but a roof that slides open to expose the arena would add to that.

“There’s a premium to be paid for the roof,” Akerley said. “It would call for about $3 million in structural costs.”

While ICC and its co-owned development partner, Nustadia Developments Inc., have designed a small-scale events center with a retractable roof, none has yet been built. The only other retractable-roof installation the companies have done is at a 40,000-seat sports stadium in Japan.

The Omniplex design is specific to the new fairgrounds site. Seating on the east side of the arena, according to ICC’s plans, is banked higher than on the west, and with the roof sections open the Omniplex would offer views of the Front Range to the west for spectators in the upper levels on the arena’s east side.

Construction of the Omniplex, according to the ICC proposal, “eliminates the need for a privately developed and financed music amphitheater,” a feature of the fairgrounds plan that is not included in the $70 million cost.

Several groups have responded to the county’s request for qualifications to build an amphitheater, including one organized by Robin Jones, the owner of Poudre Canyons Mishawaka Inn. Jones could not be reached to comment on the ICC plan by the time The Northern Colorado Business Report went to press.

The critical ingredient of the ICC plan is the money that could be generated with a 38-game schedule of minor-league hockey. The group says it will use the hockey schedule as the core of an “event calendar” that will serve as the basis for income projections.

ICC proposes that it and the county split the estimated $460,000 cost of designing the Omniplex and conducting financial-feasilbility studies.

Akerly spent part of last week with fair board members and other county officials explaining details of his plan, and dealing with prickly questions about the compatibility of a hockey stadium with a dirt-floor rodeo arena.

He and Cheney said concerns were mostly put to rest during the meetings.

“At the end of a couple of hours, we were all paddling the canoe together,” Akerly said.

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