Fayetteville event center expected to remain ‘first-class’ despite design cutbacks. Good.

Cumberland County commissioners experienced a severe case of sticker shock last week, with a new, higher price tag to build an already pricey performing arts and events center. The center has been a long-held dream of some members of that body, and for many residents.

The Board of Commissioners’ Crown Event Center Committee heard from the project’s delivery team last Tuesday that construction costs had pushed what was tapped to be a $131 million venture to as high as $163.5 million.

More: Design revealed for Fayetteville's $131.7M Crown Event Center

Matt DeSilver, who is area manager for MBP Carolinas — which is the county's representative on the delivery team — had more bad news in his presentation to the committee: The timeline for completion of the events center would be 2026, not 2025.

To be clear: None of that is great.

But commissioners appear ready to stick to their plans to build the center, and I am glad about that. The long-term benefits to the community are too great.

Commissioners' frustration and a new design plan

The delivery team is expected to report back on Tuesday by 1 p.m. to the Event Center Committee with a new design and a center costing $145 million, said Glenn Adams, chairman of the Board of Commissioners, told me on Friday. The committee is scheduled to meet in Room 564 of the Cumberland County Courthouse at 117 Dick St. For background on the center check the county website.

More: Downtown Fayetteville events center on pace, says county: 'We deserve this'

I asked Adams if he expected the center to still be built and whether he expected it to still be first-class. He answered yes to both.

Adams chairs the Crown Event Center committee and serves on the body with fellow commissioners Jimmy Keefe and Jeannette Council. Committee members were frustrated that “they were not given an update earlier in the process or made aware of potential issues related to the increased program and budget,” according to a release from the county.

Keefe, whom I talked to on Friday, put it more succinctly: “We were all pretty hot.”

The release states that the previous figure of $131 million was based on estimates that MBP and EwingCole, the architect, provided the board. The figure changed when TA Loving/Metcon — the construction manager at-risk — were “brought on board to confirm pricing and schedule,” the release states.

Adams recalled on Friday that the original price tag for the event center was $80 million. But he says the board was told they could not get what they wanted for that cost.

“We should have realized that was going to add some time to it, because it added space,” he said.

What kind of design changes exactly?

I am wary of talk of scaling back the design. We should be careful. The whole point of the planned downtown venue is to attract a level of entertainment we do not get otherwise and to push tourism and investment. For that to happen, we need the facility to be top-notch.

It sounds like that is still the plan from commissioners’ perspective.

Adams said the goal remains producing an “aesthetically pleasing” facility that serves the community. He noted that the redesign would not affect the number of seats.

Keefe said the commissioners expect changes that will not “take away from the customer experience,” saying items cut would likely include meeting space, some dressing rooms and some administrative offices.

Keefe also made $145 million sound like a hard number. He said it was based on the 13% rise in inflation.

“That’s our line in the sand,” he said.

He said if the construction costs gets too high, the center will lose the ability to pay for itself, which would lead to an increase in ticket prices.

“We don't want a facility that is going to be a burden on the taxpayer,” he said.

Parks bond and Segra: Big price tags, big winners

The unfortunate reality of government taking on large-scale projects like this is that construction costs do not wait for the naturally slow pace of government.

We saw this with the City of Fayetteville’s $32 million parks bond, passed in 2016, where escalating construction costs — made worse by the COVID-19 disruptions — have led to scaling back some projects, canceling others and putting still others on the back burner.

Despite all this, the bond has been a major success, leading to the construction of a senior center, a skate park and helping free up other money to raise the number of city pools from one to four. Dividends are still happening with a tennis center and another senior center under construction and a sports complex in the planning stage.

More: Pitts: Fayetteville opens senior center with lake view; tennis complex in future

Similarly, members of the Fayetteville City Council faced such a reckoning moment in financing the baseball stadium. The project had initially been calculated to cost $33 million, which over time rose to $40 million.

The city soldiered on and the impact of Segra, where the Fayetteville Woodpeckers play baseball, speaks for itself. The city has reaped tens of millions in new investment, including the refashioning of the Prince Charles Hotel, a longtime albatross, into apartments. The positive effects will continue into the future — this, despite the pandemic forcing the cancellation of some projects and a reworking of others.

The delay is baked-in. Why it matters

The delay on the Crown Event Center is important because the Crown Theater and Crown Arena — the venues on U.S. 301 that the event center is expected to replace, will close in November of next year. That will leave the county for potentially a year or more with only the Crown Coliseum and Crown Expo Center as its only major entertainment properties.

But 2025 for the Event Center is not an option any longer, Keefe said.

He said hiring major contractors can be competitive, thanks to all the projects funded by the federal American Rescue Plan, and state-funded projects that are underway in our county.

“Everybody loves that the General Assembly brought us all that money last year for Fayetteville State and for FTCC," he said. “Well, the same people that are going to be building those projects, are the same ones that are going to be (subcontractors) on the Crown Event Center. What we have fallen into the trap of, is you have too much success to the economy, and people are working, which is causing delays.”

It will be worth it

In Durham, the Durham Bulls stadium and Durham Performing Arts Center is a one-two punch that has benefitted the city and a group of merchants there for many years. How do I know? I asked them while reporting in Durham to gauge what impact a Fayetteville baseball stadium might have, before Segra had been built.

In particular, I think the Event Center’s planned location near the Cumberland County Courthouse will help Person Street, southeast of the Market House, finally come into its own in terms of retail and further development. It has trailed Hay Street for years when it comes to these things, for reasons that are not well-understood.

If you build it, they will come has passed into cliche. But cliches earn that status because they typically contain a big element of truth.

I expect the Event Center to have an impact similar to Segra. But we must hold the course.

Myron B. Pitts can be reached at mpitts@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3559.

Editor's note: This version of the story corrects the date for the Crown Event Center Committee meeting.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville event center to be scaled down. It still sounds like a winner