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| Photo Credit: NBC |
It was a big day today for this blog and the Save Roberts Stadium movement as I spoke with Shalah Sasse of Eyewitness News and Arek Sarkissian II of the Evansville Courier & Press. Of course, no media day is quite complete without a playing of the famous song from the NBC show Meet The Press that reminds me of the time when I worked in D.C....
Let's take these interviews one-by-one....
Eyewitness News Interview
http://tristatehomepage.com/fulltext-news?nxd_id=507852
Overall, I felt like this interview went pretty good. I was able to get the most important parts of our message out. I do wish that our local media would interview Hank Roberts' granddaughter Kristine Beard and his great-granddaughter Lisa Jean Beard who truly respect what Hank accomplished for both the Roberts family and the city of Evansville whether it be in the past, the present, or the future.
During the interview, I walked Eyewitness News through step by step of what it will take to renovate Roberts Stadium into a mid-sized arena. I also explained how a mid-sized arena can host BMX tours while a BMX only facility, for which there are already 2 in town, can not as all of the seats would be removed.
Like I said in the interview, this decision will most definitely affect Mayor Winnecke's career. I have no idea which side he thinks has more supporters but our task force sessions were always roughly 90-10 in favor of Roberts Stadium. Not to mention, neither I nor any candidate who sent poll workers to the area around Roberts Stadium could find anyone wanting to demolish this iconic structure. On the flip side, there are over 150 Save Roberts Stadium yards in the neighborhood that were bought and placed in the yards by Save Roberts Stadium supporter Sherman Stevens.
My message in this interview was very simple: I stand behind Roberts Stadium as a mid-sized arena and I'm asking Mayor Winnecke to as well.
Interview With The Courier & Press
I was glad to get a phone call from Mr. Sarkissian today as well. Yesterday, I reported my disapproval with the way the C&P reported the Roberts Stadium Task Force's report. I found it nothing short of professional for Mr. Sarkissian to give me a call today to make sure he had both sides of the story as well as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
This article appeared in today's C&P...
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2012/apr/26/roberts-stadium-followup-hrp/
It's pretty obvious what the goal of this report was- to make sure that this report speaks the truth about what our task force found. Currently, page 13 of this document doesn't accomplish this as it claims the following...
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SOME GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
Some general conclusions arose out of the public input meetings and the subcommittee discussions.
- Roberts Stadium was originally designed, and later renovated, for a specific use. Converting it to a different use will, in most cases, be more expensive than building an equivalent new facility. Several items lead to this conclusion.
- The main floor must be raised to deal with the underground water. While necessary, this will add very little value to the end use of the project.
- Raising the floor will require major modifications to the air handling system in the building. Again, this is necessary but will add very little value to the end use of the project.
- There was a consistent theme expressed in the public input that the end use for this property be “something for everyone”.
- The financial viability of the projects identified in this report will depend more on their ongoing operating cost coupled with the organizational capacity available to manage them and promote their activities than on the initial investment. Getting estimates of operating costs and capabilities that are good enough to use will require more specificity and design work than is currently available.
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There are several problems with this page...
1. There was never any "general conclusions" regarding anything. Our subcommittees where divided up immediately after the public sessions were held. After that, we had one public task force meeting where we presented all of our findings. We never discussed any of the above statements as being something the entire group agreed upon, we never voted on any of the above statements, and we certainly never recommended any of these statements be placed in the report. To double check, I called two other task force members tonight who confirmed exactly what I'm saying.
2. Like I said yesterday, it's common sense that you cannot demolish Roberts Stadium and construct an entirely new facility for the $4 million to $4.5 million it is estimated to cost to renovate Roberts Stadium. A pole barn is about the only thing you can construct for that price. And this report says that this statement was a general conclusion among the group? That's absurd.
3. Since when did raising the floor and renovating the HVAC system total an arena? If you have a leaky basement is your house totaled if you change the piping? Raising the floor and renovating the HVAC system will indeed add value to Roberts Stadium as the facility will then be the proper size to host mid-sized events. Once more, this isn't rocket science.
4. I like how the green space subcommittee's "something for everyone" theme suddenly became the theme for our entire task force especially given that converting the entire lot into a green space is anything but "something for everyone." There's no doubt that we need to build "something for everyone," but that certainly doesn't mean we should strip the entire lot down to a green space.
5. Since when did maintenance costs take priority over start-up costs? The difference between a renovated Roberts Stadium and a green space is roughly $8 million to $9.5 million. That's basically an entire ECVB ball field complex.
Roberts Stadium, according to SMG's figures, would cost $1.163 million to run each year when fully booked. The vast majority of that is payroll and insurance that would be covered by the teams and events that rent the facility. Roberts Stadium's current maintenance budget is on track to be around $234,000.
But even if we used up $1.163 million a year, it would still take us 8 to 10 years to catch up to just the start up costs for the green space. And this report is claiming that those costs don't count? That's basically a decade of costs before one dime of revenue from Roberts Stadium is even considered. Like the other statements, this one is absurd.
6. This page was never agreed upon by the committee. In fact, Mr. Larry Steenberg only sent us an email telling us we had to chase down a subcommittee leader last Thursday. We never discussed the final report as a group and we certainly never had the time to object to this page being in this report. This begs the question Why was a page that is full of so many inaccuracies allowed to be placed into this report?
With all of that being said, the topic of page 13 was clearly the one and only goal out of this C&P article. But as usual, we were treated to some comments on the message board that make you want to shake your head in disbelief.
(From the C&P article above)
First of all, renovating Roberts DOES NOT cost $14 million (that is the green space's range). Rather, it is expected to cost $4 million to $4.5 million which is roughly 1/3rd the price of the green space.
Next, the Thunder failed because they were in a cash strapped league whose economic model was ahead of its time, the triplets left town because they couldn't get a new ballpark or renovations to Bosse Field, and the Bluecats failed because the rent was too high (they averaged at least 2,100 to 2,500 fans a game each year).
We have the opportunity to build a facility where our new indoor football team will not have to struggle like the Bluecats to be able to afford the rent. That facility is Roberts Stadium.
Huzuur writes:
We don't need a facility for mid-sized events? Says who? Where will these teams go? Where will this lost revenue go?
We can't afford to renovate Roberts but we CAN afford to construct a green space that is 3 times the price of renovating Roberts AND it generates ZERO income? This equation doesn't make sense.
fratguy69 writes:
I've heard it all now. I've got a "fratguy" questioning my experience? Obviously, I'm not the one who wrote that line about where I went to college, that was the decision of the C&P, but yes I have worked in an arena before.
However, my experience is a moot point as both SMG AND Venuworks are interested in Roberts Stadium as well if the city agrees to coordinate our two facilities. Perhaps "fratguy" can question their experience level as well.
Lastly, when did I EVER say I was against selling naming rights? The only reason why I have not mentioned selling the naming rights to the arena is because it is basically worthless as the facility has already established its name as "Roberts Stadium" and yes Hank Roberts does deserve his name on this facility.
I have long been an advocate for selling naming rights to the gates...
http://saverobertsstadium.blogspot.com/2011/11/selling-secondary-naming-rights-can.html
Fratguy clearly spent very little time thinking out his post. But then again, would you expect anything different from those who support demolition?
As you see, we are battling the worst of the worst here in Evansville to pull this project off. The important thing to remember is that we must stick to our strategy and keep the pedal to the medal. If we let off the gas just one day, those who support demolition will take full advantage.
Today will hopefully be just the first of many days we discuss Roberts Stadium to the media!