Glendale seeks new arena manager; IceArizona may be out

A fast-track search for a new manager for Gila River Arena is not sitting well with the Arizona Coyotes.

The Glendale City Council on Tuesday voted to hire Beacon Sports Capital Partners LLC as a consultant to seek bidders to manage the arena, with the manager taking over as early as July 2016. IceArizona, the Coyotes’ ownership group, has overseen the arena the past two years.

The move comes after the Coyotes and Glendale reached a settlement six weeks ago in a high-profile legal dispute that ended the city’s 15-year, $225 million deal with the team and replaced it with a two-year agreement for the Coyotes to play in Glendale.

While the deal for the team to play in the arena runs through 2017, the settlement allows the city to pick a new manager for the building prior to that. City and team leaders had talked publicly about trying to move forward with hopes of a longer-term agreement when they struck the deal.

Vice Mayor Ian Hugh said Wednesday the city hopes to select an arena manager as early as January and IceArizona will be considered if it responds to the city’s request for proposals.

Coyotes President Anthony LeBlanc said he had expected to begin negotiating with the city on an extension of the two-year agreement, but the city’s sudden move on the request for proposals makes that a moot point.

“The fact that (Glendale) jumped forward ... changes the dynamics,” LeBlanc said.

He would not say whether IceArizona will bid on managing the arena, but did reiterate that “we’re committed to (staying) in Arizona.”

Friction between the Coyotes and the City Council over management of the arena follows months of turmoil earlier this year over a long-delayed audit of the Coyotes that also was released Tuesday.

The dispute escalated when the council voted in June to end the 15-year agreement with the team. A settlement was reached in late July.

Hugh said the city does not want to wait until the last minute to evaluate bidders for the arena management. “I think the council wants to have the best arena operator we can have and we want the arena to be used to the fullest extent,” he said.

Hugh and other city officials have complained that IceArizona did not book enough non-hockey events in the arena. Glendale reported an $8.47 million loss on its $15 million arena-management investment for the 2014-15 fiscal year.

IceArizona, which hired Spectra to manage the concert business, booked 14 shows for the fiscal year ending June 30 and seven the previous year.

Concert-industry insiders have said it will be difficult to impossible to book shows and keep the arena viable if Glendale were to lose the Coyotes and more than 40 nights of NHL hockey in the building.

Councilwoman Lauren Tolmachoff said she hopes the city can negotiate a long-term agreement to keep the Coyotes in Glendale but added that the arena-management deal is a separate issue.

“It’s about time the city got this right and hired a professional to figure out how (the arena) can be successful for everyone,” she said.

Glendale is bringing Beacon Sports back as a consultant to help with the arena-management hiring process. Beacon is an investment bank and financial-advisory firm based in Needham, Mass.

The city hired Beacon in 2013 to oversee the proposals for managing what was then called Jobing.com Arena, but the Coyotes’ ownership group struck its own deal with Glendale.

The council on Tuesday approved an initial $25,000 retainer for Beacon. The company’s staff will be paid $400 per hour.

Under Glendale’s new agreement, IceArizona is the arena manager through at least June 30 and the city must give 90 days’ notice if it plans to replace IceArizona. The city would have to notify IceArizona of the change by the end of March if it wanted a new manager to take over July 1.

The city’s audit of the Coyotes 2013-14 season was released Tuesday about an hour before the council voted 7-0 to hire Beacon. The audit found: