FARGO - Consultants the city hired to find out if the Civic Center can be turned into a performance center asked city officials Monday if they are willing to go as far as demolishing the half-century old building.

"If that's the conclusion, we would have no problem going there," said City Commissioner Dave Piepkorn. Sometimes, he said, building new is cheaper than repurposing a building.

"Just be honest," Bruce Grubb, the city's enterprise director, told consultants.

Grubb and Piepkorn are members of the Civic Center Committee, as are officials from the Fargodome Authority. The consultants are from Chicago-based HVS, a name familiar to the committee because the firm earlier studied the feasibility of a convention center here.

Grubb said experts were needed after the city decided to demolish the Civic's Centennial Hall to make way for the new City Hall, which made it harder to book events at the Civic. He said city leaders also felt there was a need for some sort of events center and thought the Civic fit the bill.

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The first order of business for HVS will be to study the demand for such a center. It would be more than a performing arts center, which has been discussed for decades. Besides concerts, dances and plays, committee members envision the facility hosting corporate events such as when NFL Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw spoke to a chamber crowd last fall.

At one point, HVS Managing Director Thomas Hazinski asked the committee what to call the facility, noting earlier the need to not use politically loaded words. He suggested avoiding "performing arts center" and using "events center" to encompass the broader uses of the facility.

Piepkorn immediately shot down the idea, saying people might think the committee was talking about a convention center.

Plans for a new convention center, where it would be built and how the city would pay for it remains a divisive issue for the city.

HVS is expected to begin its research this week by interviewing would-be users of the facility, such as the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony, theater groups and area universities, Grubb said. He expects a draft of a market analysis in about four weeks, he said.

After that phase, HVS will study the financial feasibility of a performance center. The total compensation for HVS and JLG Architects, which will also take part in the study, is $107,800.