Cramton Bowl could be getting a makeover
By Tim Gayle • April 26, 2010
City officials are moving ahead with plans to renovate Cramton Bowl and to build an indoor sports arena, perhaps in the parking lot adjacent to the municipal football stadium.
Mayor Todd Strange spoke to city council members last week about his $30 million project, with two-thirds of that expenditure aimed at creating a new 95,000-square foot indoor sports facility.
"We have talked about it," said City Council president Charles Jinright. "We've talked about how to finance it and where the revenue would come from. I think we all saw the indoor volleyball tournament (in January at the Performing Arts Center) was such a success and how to move on that. It's an opportunity to bring people to Montgomery and fill up our motels.
"We know we'll have a lot of naysayers but it's an investment in our city."
Strange said the timing would never be better, considering bonds are at record low interest rates and there are several types of financial incentives readily available for the project. He said he would finalize plans and present a proposal to the City Council for their vote some time early this summer.
Strange took the first step in this direction in September when he announced the creation of the Central Alabama Sports Commission and named Ken Blankenship its executive director. The first duty of the commission was to survey the city's facilities and determine which venues needed to be upgraded.
"The renovation of Cramton Bowl is clearly a need that we have," Strange said. "I'm moving forward with proposals to renovate Cramton Bowl and to build an indoor sports facility of 95,000 square feet that would accommodate volleyball, wrestling, basketball, indoor soccer and tennis.
"This is not a cost, this is an investment. It's just like Riverwalk Stadium. How much criticism was there six or seven years ago when we spent $26 million to build Riverwalk? There should be no criticism today because it was an investment that is paying huge dividends. It's the exact same thing with an indoor facility. There is no city our size anywhere that doesn't have those kinds of facilities."
The city has conducted studies in the past to renovate the 88-year-old Cramton Bowl, but those studies included some type of financial partnership with Alabama State University, which uses the facility for its home football games. As Alabama State officials continue plans of building an on-campus facility, Strange moved onward alone to put the finishing touches on the city's stadium.
A $4.2 million renovation in 2004 swapped the natural grass playing surface for an artificial surface, remodeled the dressing rooms, added aluminum seating to the West stands and upgraded the lights. It was the first substantial work done to the stadium since the East stands were added in 1962.
"We've got to do something to it," Jinright said. "The only thing we've done to it is put in a new field, dressing rooms and seating, but nothing to the press box or the concession stands. It's old. It needs to be renovated, it needs to be changed."
The city was approached about hosting the championship games of the Alabama High School Athletic Association in the late 1990s, but its inadequate dressing area for teams prevented that. When the Blue-Gray All-Star Football Classic lost its corporate sponsorship in 2000, officials were unable to attract a new sponsor with an outdated press box that does not include luxury suites for sponsors.
The new plans drawn up by local architect McKee and Associates include an elevator to a new press box, a suite area for Alabama State officials or potential game sponsors, and additional dressing rooms under the East stands. It also specifies an entrance off of Madison Avenue that would change the North bowl area into an open area and improvements to the concourse area under the West stands.
"There are a lot of reasons to fix Cramton Bowl and (attracting new events) is one of them because we've got to go to the next level," Blankenship said.
"There are 30 reasons to fix Cramton Bowl. If we fix it, we're going to have more than football in there. There are a world of things we're looking at that can be in there, but we've got to fix it."
Most of the plans, added Wiley Steen, are similar to the last plans presented to then-Mayor Bobby Bright nearly a decade ago.
"We used part of the ideas but actually got a different architect," said Steen, director of the city's Leisure Services and Facilities Management and a member of the sports commission. "It's basically the same thing -- a new press box, the concourse on the West (press box) side and a new entrance on Madison Avenue. It would give the sports commission a chance to bid on some stuff."
There are several areas to place the new indoor facility, but the most logical is to add it to the area outside of the South end zone at Cramton Bowl, where parking already exists and where the new facility can provide additional accessories to the football stadium.
"There are a couple of options," Strange said. "That will be a decision that the commission will make hopefully this month. If we pull the trigger in the next 60-90 days, we can play in it in the fall of 2011."
Sports commission member Quentin Riggins, an all-state linebacker at Robert E. Lee who played in Cramton Bowl during the mid-1980s, said everyone is in agreement with Strange that the time has come to upgrade the city's sports facilities to lure more events to the Capital City.
"When you look at other communities, they have made upgrades to their facilities and created multi-purpose facilities," he said. "I think it's time to do that with Montgomery's facilities.
"Alabama State and AUM, even Auburn up the street, Troy down the road, you can figure out with the sports commission how to take advantage of these schools' (athletic programs) if you had the facilities to do so. We've got to put the facilities together to attract them."
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