Plans for downtown arena move forward

Wings Stadium, home of the Kalamazoo Wings minor league hockey team.

By Fritz Klug
News Editor

Kalamazoo County and local investors are one step closer to building an $81.2 million, 9,000-seat arena in downtown Kalamazoo.

The county vetting committee released its second and final report concerning the proposed event center Friday, Feb. 12, which finds that it is a viable endeavor for the county to undertake.

The 45-page document is the culmination of eight months of studying the feasibility of paying off the construction debt of the arena by proposing a one percent tax on all food and beverages served at restaurants, as well as a one percent accommodation tax on hotel and car rentals.

Click here to read the full report

The arena would be owned and operated by the county, which would also manage paying the construction costs. The county would take out $65 million in Build America Bonds.

The committee is made up of local members of the business community, and is headed by Western Michigan University’s former Chief Financial Officer, Bob Beam.

Read Field House, home of the Western Michigan University men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball, gymnastics, and women’s indoor track and field teams.

The report be formally presented to the county commission board at a special, Feb. 23 meeting, from where they will decide whether to put the measure on the August 3, 2010 primary election ballot.

County Administrator Peter Battani said that the second report answers three major questions posed from the first report. The first is whether WMU will commit to playing hockey and men’s basketball games in the new arena, the second is if the Kalamazoo Wings will play there as well.

Both Kathy Beauregard, director of athletics at WMU, and Ronald Elenbass, president and CEO of Greenleaf Hospitality Group that manages the Wings, have letters in the report that say they are interested in having their teams play in the arena.

The third part Battani pointed to is the $9.7 to $14.7 million of private funding for the project that is needed to pay off the debt. Acadia Commons West co-chairs Ken Miller and Kalamazoo Valley Community College President Marilyn Shlack also wrote a letter in which they said they would raise a $5 million endowment as a “safety net” in the event of revenue or bond shortfalls.

Hockey, Basketball, and WMU

The Kalamazoo Wings and WMU men’s basketball and hockey would make up the cornerstone of tenants in the arena, Beam wrote in his introduction to the report.

In the 2008-09 season, WMU men’s basketball played 15 games at University Arena, and 22 hockey games in Lawson Ice Arena. The Kalamazoo Wings are scheduled to play 38 games in Wings Stadium for a total of 75 events between October 2008 and April 2009.

Kathy Beaurgaurd wrote a letter to Battani on Jan. 30 expressing the university’s interest in playing those games downtown.

Click here to read Beaurgaurd’s full letter

“We are interested in becoming a tenant,” Beauregard said. “It’s not a guarantee; there is a lot to be negotiated and worked out.”

One of the major conditions for university involvement is that it does not cost any more money now than it does to hold the events in the current facilities.

“We have to stay financially whole,” Beauregard said. She added that the university cannot afford to pay more for rent downtown then they currently do on campus.

The $18.6 million athletic budget is funded by $13 million from tuition and state appropriations, $1 million from licensing, another $1 million from NCAA revenue, and $1.3 million from individual support and program revenue. Other revenue is generated from concessions and foundation support.

The guarantee is also that WMU will have to get some kind of recognition on the structure of the arena.

“It is a WMU hub,” Beauregard said. “It is definitely going to be recognizable that Western Michigan University has a part in this.”

Another part of the tentative plans is that students will still be able to attend the games for free at the arena.
Beauregard said that, according to NCAA guidelines, alcohol could be served in the arena during any game, apart from championships.

Currently, the men’s basketball team plays in Read Fieldhouse, which has a capacity of 5,421. As an intercollegiate athletics-based facility, athletics only has to pay for custodial and police.

“It’s our own building. We don’t charge ourselves for it,” said Monty Porter, associate athletic director

WMU’s hockey team plays and practices in Lawson Ice Arena, which can hold up to 3,667 people. Last year, it cost around $70,000 a year for ice time at Lawson, according to Porter. For Read, there is exchange of money to pay custodians to clean the facilities, maintenance services, ground keepers and police during games.

If basketball and hockey are sent downtown, the teams will still practice in Lawson and Read.

In addition to those sports, Lawson is used by community hockey teams and for open skate while Read Fieldhouse houses women’s basketball, gymnastics, and indoor track and field.

Beauregard said that between all the other scheduling, there would not be enough room in the schedule to play women’s basketball games, but that some games might be played in the arena. There is also not enough attendance at those games to bring people in.

While university money would be going to fund a county arena, taking dollars that would go to the upkeep of Lawson to downtown. Beauregard said that
Lawson could make up the loss by renting out that prime ice time to others in the community.

Beauregard also noted that the arena could be a positive recruiting tool for athletes, as well as bringing schools with larger athletics programs to play non-conference games.

There is also the opportunity to bring conference championships to the arena.

Overall, Beauregard said athletics plays an important role as a liaison between the university and wider community.

“Our goal is to obviously blend within the university structure. We feel that we are a big part of the university culture. We’re really the front door to our community when it comes to bring the community to our campus,” she said.

More involvement than sports

Ken Miller, who also chairs the WMU Board of Trustees, said that in addition to the arena, there are housing, arts, retail, and educational components to consider.

Miller said Kalamazoo College, WMU, and Kalamazoo Valley Community College, “have all indicated strong interest from the educational side. That could be anything from having a culinary school or locating out Confucius Institute down there, or something, something that will bring the college and universities together at this site and something that will bring the colleges and universities into our urban core. Western will play a very pivotal part in that.”

Miller said that specifics are to be defined and are being decided on in committees, but there is a possibility of having WMU’s dietetics program partner with KVCC’s culinary arts school downtown.

“There could be classrooms down there,” he said.

Zach Spenser represents the student body on the committee. He said his biggest concern is how students will get downtown.

“How do you get students effectively, efficiently, and safely from our campus to the Arcadia Commons West district?” he said.

Spenser is preparing to give presentations to students on campus and answer their concerns.

Spenser said the sidewalks would have to be safe and well-lit. There is also talk of a pedestrian bridge over stadium drive, which WMU President John Dunn has been in support of.

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Posted by heraldstaff on Feb 14 2010. Filed under Breaking, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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