THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 12, 1995 TAG: 9503120429
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM ROBINSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: GREENSBORO LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
After a six-year absence, the ACC tournament has found its way home - at a price to Greensboro of more than $63 million.
It took a massive renovation and expansion of the Greensboro Coliseum, with all the bitter feelings and political and logistical problems inherent in major municipal projects, to come up with the Greensboro Coliseum Complex.
This 324,000 square-foot, five-facility baby, intended to propel Greensboro back into North Carolina's competitive special-events market, ran more than a year behind schedule and about $20 million over the original estimate
Contractors were fired. All along, citizens and city officials wondered out loud just what was going on. And when it opened last year, it was in violation of more than 100 building and fire codes.
But, bottom line, it opened. It is here. It is expansive, shiny, warm and welcoming, with exhibition halls, meeting rooms and auditoriums. And now its 23,297-seat arena - up from 16,000 - with the emerald green interior has begun a three-year deal to host what, aside from the NCAA tournament, is regarded as college basketball's showcase event.
Greensboro is home to the ACC's headquarters and has a storied place in the history of the conference tournament. There is no question, however, that the city never would have recaptured the tournament without renovating and expanding its facility.
Increasingly, too, whether or not it is economically sound thinking, cities define themselves by the presence of major sports events or franchises. Greensboro's image had dimmed in the race for concerts and conventions as new coliseums rose in Charlotte, Winston-Salem and Chapel Hill in the last decade. Raleigh, too, plans to build an arena in excess of 20,000 seats.
All are larger than anything in the state of Virginia, which has never hosted the ACC tournament.
Atlanta and Charlotte wrestled the ACC tournament from Greensboro, which hosted the league's first off-campus tournament in 1967. In 18 seasons from 1971 to 1988, Greensboro had it 13 times.
``The community really embraced the tournament all the years it was here,'' councilman Dick Grubar told a Charlotte reporter recently. ``It was kind of our monument. When we lost it, we had lost a little bit of our city.''
The Charlotte Coliseum, home of the last five ACC tournaments, Atlanta's Georgia Dome and Greensboro are poised to bid next month for the six tournaments from 1998 to 2003. Charlotte has a capacity of 23,172 for the tournament, while the Georgia Dome could seat 35,000 to 40,000. Greensboro is already at another disadvantage to those two because of a lack of luxury suites. So coliseum officials have asked local business leaders to bankroll 20 suites for $1.5 million.
``Ten years ago, this was a hot spot,'' said Linda McCarthy, the coliseum's marketing director. ``But the entire sports marketing business has changed. The days of putting your feet up and waiting for events to call you are over. Buildings are popping up all over the place.''
Not in Norfolk, they aren't. Though mayor Paul D. Fraim said a 20,000-seat arena is second on his list of economic development priorities behind completion of the MacArthur Center shopping complex, any efforts toward building an arenaare in the ``baby steps'' stage, he said.
Fraim said the city has people ``spending quality time thinking about it,'' and ``the consensus on the council is the numbers would have to work, but I think people think it could be an important project. It's very early. It's only in the conceptual stage. We're continuing to gather facts and evaluate it. We're trying to examine if it's doable and how do you do it?''
Still, Fraim said he ``thinks about it all the time. I see a hockey team, Division I basketball playoffs or a basketball franchise, concerts, conventions. I see the whole thing.'' Even the ACC tournament? With a 20,000-seat arena, it could happen.
Five years ago, Greensboro formed a citizens' task force to decide between a new or renovated coliseum to recapture and retain, above all, the ACC tournament. A new complex, estimated at $100 million, was deemed too expensive, while a renovation was thought to be possible for $43.7 million.
That estimate was soon bumped another $2 million, and the first two bond referendums on the project were defeated before voters said yes in 1990 by a tally of 33,661 to 30,514.
Through the process, as the city council approved more money for more additions - to be made up largely in hotel/motel taxes - and delays mounted, public grumbling grew louder. The cacophony of dissent, especially when the opposition is as organized as it was in Greensboro, is hard to take but expected, marketing director McCarthy said.
``It's not the positive public image you want, but no projects of this magnitude get done on time,'' she said. ``Try just renovating your kitchen and set yourself a finishing date, then come tell me if it was completed on time.''
Now that it is done and the ACC spotlight has returned, Greensboro's chest is puffed out. Again. Which was the idea all along. by CNB