As Tucson's metro population surpasses 1 million, the questions over big-city amenities continue. With a dated and small convention center and arena downtown, the city awaits studies to determine if a new 12,500 seat arena is justified, or if the current one seating 9,500 should be remodeled. (FYI--Albuquerque, with a somewhat smaller metro pop., is considering a new 19,000-seat downtown arena.)
current TCC arena
TCC Arena: fix it up or build anew?
Programming and amenities driving debate
By Rob O'Dell
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
11.19.2006
The Tucson Convention Center is the city's equivalent of an old car. The question city officials are now trying to answer is whether to invest money in the old jalopy and fix it up, or buy a brand new car with all the options and expensive new gadgets they want.
To figure it out, the city has commissioned a study to determine how much of the new amenities and programming it has planned for a new Downtown arena could be handled by a revamped TCC Arena. The second question obviously is how much revamping the existing arena would cost, said TCC Director Rich Singer. Singer said the city is looking for a new arena to have 12,500 seats, with 22 hospitality suites that hold 12 people and would likely be rented by corporations or businesses. It would also have 500 club seats with access to a 5,000-square-foot club restaurant and bar area.
Programming plans for a new arena call for an expanded number of concerts, University of Arizona Icecats hockey games, a minor league hockey team and a second-tier Arena Football League team.
The new arena would cost $100 million to $200 million, Singer said, declining to be more specific. The city has a nearly completed study on the cost to be released in January.
However, Councilman Steve Leal said he heard initial estimates of $135 million and recent estimates of $185 million. Singer said that if the city could get 80 percent of the programming into a revamped TCC arena at a cost of 30 percent less than building a new one, that could be a scenario to consider. If the costs were nearly the same and the city could only accommodate half the programming it wants, that would argue for building a new one, Singer said.
"The current arena has a fatal flaw, and that's that the ceiling is too low," he said. Most arenas have a 75-foot-high ceiling, while the TCC arena's is only 46 feet above the ground, Singer said. Most concert sets are geared for a 75-foot-high ceiling, the industry standard, he said. Singer said the TCC missed out on the recent Prince tour because of that. The money was right and the date was right but the ceiling was not, so Prince walked, he said.
Tucson is the third-largest city in America without a contemporary arena, Singer said. To make the TCC Arena competitive, the ceiling would need to be raised, something that consultants have said is a possibility at first blush, said City Manager Mike Hein. "Any responsible person would ask, 'Why build new? why not renovate existing (venues)?' " Hein said. "It's not fair to the community to provide just one option."
If the the arena is found to be fixable, Hein said new convention space and meeting rooms would be constructed and added on to TCC. If a new arena were built, he said the extra convention space would come from demolishing the existing TCC arena and building new convention space there. Hein said
three studies on the arena will be released in January or February: on the new arena's final cost, on renovating the existing TCC Arena, and on how to renovate the entire Convention Center if a new arena is built to make it a national draw for conventions.
Councilwoman Karin Uhlich compared the importance of the decision to Pima County's decision to build Tucson Electric Park on the South Side on East Ajo Way near South Kino Parkway in the 1990s. "These are huge decisions that will have implications in Tucson for decades," Uhlich said, noting that a price tag north of $100 million adds to the weight as well.
Leal questioned why the debate should be a new arena versus renovating the existing TCC arena. He said he would like to see a list of all Rio Nuevo Downtown redevelopment projects and their costs. The arena involves "so much money it takes away from everything," Leal said. It is conceivable that spending as much as $200 million on a new arena could crimp other Rio Nuevo projects, Leal said, including plans to spend $200 million on the West Side as part of a $400 million-plus museum and cultural district.
That district will include a University of Arizona Science Center, new centers for the Arizona Historical Society and the Arizona State Museum, and a re-creation of the convento, chapel and other features of the San Agustín Mission. "In general, I've been dubious about the arena," Leal said. "If I have $100,000 to renovate a house, it doesn't make sense to spend $75,000 on a bathroom."