Does the Mid-South Coliseum have a future? Looking at the Coliseum Coalition business plan

Good morning in Memphis, where we'll talk about the whole Fairgrounds tonight, but first ...

Big rock concerts, high-level college hoops, weekly wrestling shows. Those were the three pillars of the Mid-South Coliseum back in its 1960s-1980s heyday.

Youth sports, high school graduations, and community events are centerpieces of a more modest immediate future now envisioned by the Coliseum Coalition.

Tonight, the city will host a “Fairgrounds Feedback” meeting at the Kroc Center, the second of three public meetings expected to yield an actual fairgrounds plan by the end of the year.

After previously making their case for the physical viability of the building, Coliseum advocates, including preservation architect Charles "Chooch" Pickard and Coalition president Roy Barnes, have now taken the next step, releasing a comprehensive business plan that envisions a moderately profitable future with potential for growth. (You can read it in full or in summary.)

Their proposal, in essence:

We propose to reopen the shuttered Mid-South Coliseum as a modern, accessible, multipurpose, 4,999-seat indoor public facility, configured in its renovation to adjoin and complement a newer, multi-court, sports-specific facility.

Let’s sift through some of the details, with occasional parenthetical commentary:

Paying for it

The coalition estimates $23 million to renovate the building and bring it into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, with a substantial portion of this cost coming from updating electrical, HVAC, and plumbing systems. This is $7 million less than the most recently published city estimate.

To pay for this, the plan proposes raising $29 million, with $5 million going into a building endowment for operations and to help facilitate some low- or no-revenue community events. $23.5 million of this would come from Tourism Development Zone revenues that would be the primary funding source for the wider Fairgrounds project. $5 million would come from historical tax credits specific to the Coliseum. They also project another $500,000 raised via artifact sales from objects in the building.

(The cost estimate feels low to me, but what do I know? What the plan doesn’t say, but could, is that unless the city lets the the building sit empty in perpetuity, millions of dollars are likely to be spent on the Coliseum one way or another: To spruce it up or tear it down. In that sense, a real-world cost of initial renovation might subtract demolition costs. This plan also doesn’t account for the prospect of naming rights, though that potential is probably limited and calling it something other than the Mid-South Coliseum would be popularly resisted.)

Gradual enhancement

One reason the cost estimate might seem low is that it’s meant as a bare-bones path, enough to open the building, make it viable for events, and ADA compliant. The plan envisions what Barnes calls the “Levitt Shell model,” where further enhancements can come later as the space shows success and establishes its viability.

Projected uses

The plan projects 134 events in year one of a reopened Coliseum, growing to more than 200 over five years. In year one, more than half of the projected events (70) are finals, semi-finals, and featured matches from events at a presumed “Fairgrounds Sports Complex,” for which the Coliseum is envisioned as a kind of culminating venue. (Is that a realistic number? If the city builds its own primary indoor youth sports facility, as seems likely, are they going to need to move out of it that frequently?)

“The city thinks youth sports is viable and we think that’s a reasonable thing,” says Barnes.

Other projected initial uses include: high school and college graduations (15), non-youth-complex sporting events (5), “civic events” (think job fairs and such, 5), “community events” (10), standalone concerts (4), affiliated concerts (think Southern Heritage Classic, 3), “community concerts” (Coliseum-organized, local, 5), private rentals (5), and “hospitality center” days in conjunction with events at the Liberty Bowl or Tiger Lane (12, may be particularly useful for winter football games).

It also mentions uses such as rehearsal space, trade shows, and back-up space for when inclement weather impacts outdoor events.

It envisions the concourse as an “always open” space with offices, museum and exhibition space, satellite public services, pop-up concessions for events, and a safe, climate-controlled walking track.(You’ve heard of mall walkers? How about Coliseum cruisers?)

It also makes this point relative to some of the other ideas that have floated around, aquariums, museums and such:

Conversion of this multipurpose building into a single purpose carries with it the unique capital costs to convert to that single purpose, unique operating costs of this single use, the financial risk of this single use failing, and the attendant risk to the Coliseum of that failure. Like the Fairgrounds, the Mid-South Coliseum is at its highest and best use with as many uses as we can imagine, as the Coliseum flexibly morphs from event to event, activity to activity, day today.

(Even these conservative use projections can be questioned, but I think this makes a great point about the risk of “single purpose” proposals. There’s a strong case that if the Coliseum is going to continue to exist, it should be as a versatile space.)

Concerts, or a lack thereof

One of the most notable parts of the plan is how little concert activity is projected. It’s not because advocates don’t want or don’t think there could be more, but because, as with the youth sports focus, they seem to have taken account of the air temperature, circa 2017, with the city’s current blend of venues and demographics and current touring activity.

“People will rip you up if you go crazy,” Barnes says of the conservative concert projection. “And we want to be honest.” Even projecting out five years, the plan only counts on standalone concerts for five percent of bookings.

The FedExForum roadblock

Another notable part of the plan is the characterization of the building as having a 4,999-seat capacity. This is a nod to FedExForum and its non-competition agreement with the city ... sort of.

There’s long been some confusion on this issue. From a legal standpoint, 5,000 is not a meaningful number for the Mid-South Coliseum. That seating threshold only applies to city/county funding of new event facilities (such as the proposed arena/theater at Graceland). For the Coliseum, regardless of size, “national” events require FedExForum consent on an individual basis and FedExForum has right of first refusal for “local community” events.

Rather, the 4,999 number seems to be based on the notion that, as a practical matter, FedExForum is unlikely to impede events below that threshold.

“We’re in their world and we need to work with them,” Barnes says.

This suggests that if the Coliseum were to move forward, it would need some kind of understanding with FedExForum on the front end that it could work in complement with the Downtown venue.

Management

The Coliseum Coalition plan outlines three potential management strategies, but proposes this one:

Scenario​ ​2:​ ​Dedicated​ ​Non-Profit​ ​Management The second is to contract with a new or existing non-profit, community-focused group that will be responsible for operating, booking, and promoting of all events and activities. This group would operate without public subsidy except for the operating endowment created during capital funding and expanded by ongoing fundraising. This structure is best exemplified in the Memphis market by the Levitt Shell’s management of the outdoor amphitheatre in Overton Park.

Other comps

From a viability standpoint, the plan points to the Coliseum’s central location in an otherwise underserved (other large indoor facilities are Downtown, east, or south) high-density, central location, with complementary amenities surrounding it. It also points to other smaller-market NBA cities that have maintained secondary arenas: Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Indianapolis, Charlotte.

What’s happening at these arenas? A quick events listing check suggests:

Charlotte (Bojangles Coliseum): A primary tenant in the form of the Charlotte Checkers minor league hockey team. Four other listed events -- a couple of concerts, a couple of conferences -- the rest of the year.

San Antonio (Freeman Coliseum): A decent number of fall concerts, a circus, a business summit.

Indianapolis (Indiana Farmers Coliseum): Pretty busy with community events, but it’s also apparently an anchor location of the Indiana State Fair and has a sports tenant in the Indy Fuel minor-league hockey team.

Oklahoma City (Jim Norick Arena): Also a state fair anchor location, with an otherwise busy calendar of community events. (They love gun shows in OKC.)

(My take away: These examples do suggest the viability of a second, smaller arena in comp markets. But they also underscore that, for better or worse, the Memphis metro area, if not Memphis proper, already has this in the form of the Landers Center in Southaven, and also, in terms of expos and such, in the Agricenter at Shelby Farms. FedExForum may present a legal hurdle, but in practice, a repurposed Mid-South Coliseum would really be competing with these venues.)

The big picture

Is all of this worth the financial cost? Is it worth the opportunity cost in what else could be done with the land?

Does the Mid-South Coliseum have a future? I’m still skeptical. Should it have a future? I’m not even sure about that. But the prospect seems less of a folly than it did a few years ago, and the hard, serious work of the Coliseum Coalition group has a lot to do with that. It seems to me that if this were to move forward it requires not just public support, but specifically city and FedExForum support.

The city isn’t likely to make specific recommendations until the third scheduled public meeting on November 6, but is expected to discuss potential uses for both the Coliseum and the wider fairgrounds tonight. The “Fairgrounds Feedback” meeting is 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Kroc Center.

Additional Reading:

Wait, he's 7-what? Mark Giannotto on the newest Tiger hoops recruit.

Speaking of venues: Germantown's adding an outdoor concert space.

I'm taking notes: Ron Maxey suggests some overlooked bike routes.

That Overton Square hotel got its tax break.

Geoff Calkins on a tight end named Joey Magnifico.

Happening in Memphis Today: The Mid-South Fair begins in Southaven. … Memphis instrumentalists the MD’s will play Booker T. & the MGs’ Beatles cover album, “McLemore Avenue” on McLemore Avenue, at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. … Southern Avenue is at the Levitt Shell. … “I Am Not Your Negro,” a visual interpretation of some late writings by author and essayist James Baldwin, is one of the most compelling films of the past few years. (It really is.) It will screen tonight at Clayborn Temple.

The Fadeout: Here’s Booker T. & the MGs, slowing down and digging into the Beatles’ “Day Tripper,” from the aforementioned McLemore Avenue album. Incidentally, “Day Tripper” was also on the set list of the Beatles’ famous Mid-South Coliseum concert in 1966.

Reach Chris Herrington at chris.herrington@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter at @chrisherrington and @herringtonNBA.