There's another squabble involving Rochester's soccer stadium

City officials have fended off questions in recent days about what to do with an empty soccer stadium, should the Rochester Rhinos not play next season.

But what if the stadium truly was emptied — not just of sports teams, but furniture, concessions and video equipment?

“I bought it. I own it — everything,” past Rhinos owner Rob Clark said from his home near Utica.

The stadium's immediate future hinges on the Rhinos, as current owners of the 22-year-old soccer team announced last week that they need to generate $1.3 million by month's end in order to play next season — a need that is separate from the furnishings and fixtures issue. Team officials say they’ve made some progress on raising the money but still aren’t halfway to that goal based on season-ticket and, more importantly, sponsorship sales.

A public rally at the stadium is set for Tuesday. It is possible the team could take a year off, then resume play.

More: City faces possibility of empty stadium after Rattlers bolt

More: Owners need $1.3 million by Nov. 30 or the Rhinos are extinct for 2018 season

Complicating matters, however, is the stadium itself. Clark claims he owns all of the office furniture, food prep and other equipment in concession stands as well as high-tech video equipment that runs the 2-year-old scoreboard, purchased by the city just before David and Wendy Dworkin took ownership of the team in March 2016.

The equipment and furnishings in total are worth more than $1 million, based on an appraiser’s estimate, Clark said. It is the latest volley in ongoing disputes between Clark and the city.

"It's an ongoing litigation matter," said city spokesman James Smith, who declined comment "in the interest of protecting city taxpayers" but added: "The city rejects their claim."

All this was news to David Dworkin when he received word from the city seven weeks ago about doing an inventory walk-through of the 11-year-old, 13,000-seat stadium and team offices with Clark. The former and current owners met for the first and only time in late September when Clark, 44, came to Rochester.

Over two days, they, along with an appraiser and a city official whom Clark didn’t know took inventory in every part of the stadium and team offices, which are part of a warehouse. The walk-through assessment was part of the discovery phase of the ongoing litigation, Smith said. And Dworkin added that Clark’s ownership claim had nothing to do with what amounts to an ultimatum from the Rhinos to pull the plug on the most storied minor-league soccer franchise in American history.

“My number doesn’t even include me having to go buy equipment,” David Dworkin said. “I never contemplated someone taking out an oven.”

What happens with the Rhinos is important for stadium operations. The stadium's secondary tenant this past season, the Rochester Rattlers lacrosse team, moved to Dallas last week. Last year, the Western New York Flash women’s pro team moved to Cary, North Carolina.

The city has declined to talk about what, if any, contingency plan exists. Smith said Mayor Lovely Warren and the city are open to discussing with Monroe County how the hotel room occupancy tax is allocated. That money helps to subsidize Frontier Field and Blue Cross Arena at the Community War Memorial, but not the soccer stadium. City taxpayers do.

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“I didn’t think about who owned the equipment. I just knew it was there,” David Dworkin said. “Whether it was the city’s or Clark’s, and he abandoned it, I don’t know which. I just know it was there.”

The city and Clark's relationship broke down several years ago.

He owned the club from 2008 through November 2015, when the city terminated his lease alleging he owed back rent and other unpaid bills and the United Soccer League canceled his franchise agreement. The city sued, seeking payment of $140,000 in past bills, in April 2015 — his final season as owner/stadium operator. That matter hasn’t been settled, Clark said, and declined to get into specifics about his walk-through or next steps toward recovery, citing the lawsuit.

“After we took over in 2008, we bought everything from Delaware North,” Clark said of the company that ran stadium concessions in 2006-07, the facility’s first two seasons and last two under its original owners. “We bought everything inside of every concession stand, down to the concrete walls, everything in them, plus the huge walk-in coolers in the (offices) warehouse. Desks and chairs, everything. I own it.”

Clark said his family attempted to recover its assets shortly after the city booted him in late 2015, but were denied. The city at one point had contemplated filing a formal police report against Clark, alleging theft, according to emails obtained by the Democrat and Chronicle through an open records request.

Clark assumed control of the team after the collapse of owners Steve Donner, Frank DuRoss and Chris Economides. They owned and ran the A-League club during its heyday, nine seasons at Frontier Field from 1996 to 2005 when the Rhinos were big winners on the field (championship seasons from 1998 to 2001) and off it (big crowds). They wanted their own facility, which ended up being called PAETEC Park in 2006-07, so they’d have more revenue streams from advertising and parking than they received as a secondary tenant at Frontier Field to the Triple-A baseball Red Wings.

The soccer stadium, which took several years to come to fruition because of financing questions and political debate about whether it was needed, cost $32 million. It was going to help boost Rochester into Major League Soccer, but that backfired and the original owners lost control of the team after defaulting on a $10.8 million loan from NBT Bank, based in Norwich, Chenango County. That’s near Clark’s home and his family’s Adirondack Bank, which recently secured naming rights to Utica Memorial Auditorium.

Adirondack had also issued a $2.1 million loan to the Rhinos. Needing a buyer, the city cut a deal with Clark and he took over the team in March of 2008. Rochester had lost two pro soccer franchises before with the Lancers of the old North American Soccer League folding in 1980 and then the Rochester Flash following suit in 1984.

It didn’t happen again, at least then, because of Clark.

A former hockey player whose family made its fortune in banking and owning more than 20 McDonald’s franchises around central New York, Clark lived in Rochester in his first two seasons as owner. He tried to rebuild the Rhinos’ brand, hired longtime area businessman and Salvatore’s Pizzeria founder “Soccer Sam” Fantauzzo to boost business and marketing, and it was working.

Clark said average attendance during his first few years was about 5,000. He means paid attendance because the club announced 8,243 in 2008, his first year, then between 6,900 and 5,600 in the six seasons to follow.

Most teams announce tickets distributed, not actual bodies in the seats. That’s what the Rhinos used to do. The higher numbers are more attractive to potential sponsors. The Dworkins, who’d never run a sports team, bucked that trend the past two years, announcing average paid attendance at 3,655 in 2016 and 2,031 this year. Prior to that, the lowest was 5,599 in 2015.

Clark lost $2 million in his first year, but that number dropped significantly after the first few years as the club found ways to cut costs.

He moved back home in 2010. By the 2013, the only season when the Rhinos failed to make the playoffs, and 2014, he’d become an absentee owner. He stopped coming regularly to matches.

“To be honest, I lost interest in it. I was tired of driving two hours there and two hours back for games. I think I only went to four or five games,” Clark said.

His father, Tom Clark, was always keeping a pretty close eye on how much the family was losing on the Rhinos. The final few years, the Rhinos had generated enough and cut enough money that they only lost a “couple thousand dollars,” a year, Clark said.

But he wasn’t paying rent and other bills, according to the city lawsuit.

Clark takes issue with assertions that cost-cutting hurt the Rhinos. “I ran it responsibly and sustainably for seven years. I didn’t run it into the ground,” said Clark, who relied primarily on Rhinos president and former coach Pat Ercoli to handle the business end of the club from 2013 to 2015. Head coach Bob Lilley also maintained a player payroll that was in the lower third of the growing USL, which will field more than 30 teams in 2018.

Clark said in the spring of 2015 his father contacted the USL and asked the league to try to identify a buyer for the Rhinos. He also said USL officials claimed they had located one by June and it was a local owner. The Clarks, Rob Clark said, offered the team and stadiums assets for $500,000.

Rob Clark thinks the Dworkins, attorneys who live in Brighton and also own several local properties, were that potential buyer.

David Dworkin said that’s not true.

“I didn’t even know the Rhinos were for sale until somebody called me on Dec. 21,” David Dworkin said, then repeated a story he told shortly after buying the club that he and his family were driving back from Toronto when he received a call from a business associate saying the club was available.

The USL had taken over the team after the city terminated Clark and was hopeful the Dworkins could reconnect the Rhinos with fans and the corporate community. That hasn’t happened. In 2016, they couldn’t come to terms on a new naming rights deal with Buffalo-based Sahlen’s Packing Co., which owned the Flash. Sahlen’s paid $1 million on its original five-year contract to call the park Sahlen’s Stadium.

It was simply called Rochester Rhinos Stadium in 2016. This spring the club announced a partnership with Capelli Sport, a New York City-based company that has worked with the USL, on a naming rights deal. Terms of that contract, in length and money, have never been disclosed. The park is now known as Capelli Sport Stadium.

The Rhinos' lease to operate the facility runs through 2025. David Dworkin said USL officials said the club could take a year off and still remain in good standing. He’s not sure what he’ll do. He said the club is still hoping to meet its funding goal by Thursday. A rally is planned at the stadium and open to the public from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Season tickets for 2018, which require a $50 deposit, will be sold. The Rhinos’ goal is to sell 2,500. They have fewer than 1,000 sold. David Dworkin also assured fans all deposits and season-seat revenue would be refunded if the team doesn’t play in 2018.

The Rhinos also have been selling merchandise — jerseys, T-shirts, etc. — at their offices, calling it a “pop-up” sale, to raise money. Merchandise is generally only sold during matches. There is no team store.

JDIVERON@Gannett.com

BDSHARP@Gannett.com

Rhinos Rally Tuesday

What: A rally for the Rochester Rhinos soccer team.

When: 6 p.m. Tuesday.

Where: Capelli Sport Stadium, 460 Oak St.

Info: The teams says this will be an open mic forum for fans to “express positively” how they plan to support the Rhinos next season.

Season tickets: Require a $50 deposit and will be sold Tuesday.