VIDEO: Corrigan, Waddell, Isley Discuss PNC Arena Extension, Renovations
NC State athletic director Boo Corrigan, Carolina Hurricanes president and general manager Don Waddell, and Centennial Authority board chair Philip Isley met with the media Tuesday morning regarding the future of PNC Arena.
Gale Force Sports and Entertainment and the Centennial Authority agreed to renew their lease for an additional 20 years, beginning at the end of the 2023-24 NHL season, and a commitment by the Authority to $300 million for renovations. Among the details within the agreement, as they pertain to the Wolfpack, are the caveats that NC State has a say in the renovations and that no vertical development shall occur in a five-acre tailgate zone for football games.
More information regarding the details of the agreement can be found here.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch the joint press conference.
Opening Statement
PI: Today is obviously a pretty incredible day in the history of this building, our city, our county, the Triangle, and the state of North Carolina. One of the things that we’ve been trying to accomplish throughout the last 16 months is to listen intently, to make sure every single stakeholder’s concern was addressed as best we could, and to make sure that the hundreds, if not thousands, of hours that we’ve all on the Authority has been dealing with, with Gale Force, with NC State, with other stakeholders… I think today is the culmination of a lot of listening, and we’re really proud, as an authority, to announce what has occurred with respect to the lease extension on the Carolina Hurricanes in addition to a $300 million enhancement with the building itself to make sure that this building is going to be a phenomenal place for NC State athletics to continue to play and thrive in, in addition to the concert tours that will be coming through for the rest of the life of this building. This building is supposed to be here until 2096. That’s a long time, but we think we’ve adequately made the right call in how we look at the building when it turns 45 years old.
On the benefits for NC State...
BC: I think it’s a great thing for us, thanks to the city and county for the commitment to $300 million. The enhancement that it’s going to have for our student-athletes and the enhancement it’s going to have for our fans is going to make it a more dynamic space for us as we compete. College athletics, at times, can be a bit of an arms race. It’s great to be in this relationship that we have with Centennial Authority as well as with the Hurricanes, and we’re excited about it.
On the impact on tailgating...
BC: Well, I think there’s time as well in all of this, in the development of all of this and where the development begins. We’re fortunate here; we have north of 14,000 spots. When you look at it, 95 percent of those spots are going to be replaced on the PNC side, if you will, of the property, and 50 percent of those will be surface parking. That leaves another 10,000 spots that are out there. We’ve talked about this before: it’s like the best and worst problem in the world to have. We have unbelievable parking, as good as parking as there is in college football. We’re going to lose some that’s going to be repurposed, but we still have an awful lot of parking, and we have time.
On the tentative arena renovations...
DW: Let me show you the drawings of it. [holds up blank page]
It’s really a vision right now of everything we’ve talked about. The number-one goal is obviously the fan experience, not just for Hurricanes but NC State and all the other events that come in here. The bones of the arena are in good shape. With the money the CA has put in and my staff maintaining it, we’re in good shape. What we don’t have is some of the amenities that newer buildings have for our fans, even from clubs to more food options. Everything we’re talking about right now, for the most part, is going to be consumer-facing. There are some things that we may need to do with our office space, move it around or something like that, to create more space in front of the building. There’s lots of visions and ideas. Now, we go to work and start putting on paper what makes sense. We just, thanks to the city and county, got $300 million. We want to do all of the projects. I think there are 76 projects left out of 138 or something. That’ll get scaled down as we figure it out. We’ve got to prioritize, and once we prioritize, the cost becomes a factor because, as Philip said or as Dan [Barrett] said downstairs, there can’t be overruns on this. There’s $300 million; it can’t be $350 [million]. It’s going to take us two months to get things really organized from a contract standpoint. There’s lots of meetings starting tomorrow about this, trying to prioritize what’s important to NC State and us as we try to build out this great deal.
BC: The only thing I would add to that as well: a lot of it is that outward facing, and the consumer has changed over the last 20 years. Kudos to the job your crew has done maintaining this building. You can see the pride when you walk into this building. It is older, but there’s great pride in what it is. We also want to focus on our student-athletes’ experience. I know Don does as well with his players, when they come into here, to know that it is important, to know that we do care about them and their experience as well as the fans that are here.
On Tom Dundon’s financial commitment...
DW: Tom is a developer. He’s developed a lot of property, mostly in Texas. When he sees an opportunity like this, he got excited about it. As you know, I talk to him quite a bit. He is thrilled about this deal, not only for the hockey team because of the lease, but the development also. The important thing for all of us is we had all of these exit windows, and there were a lot of people that were skeptical that he really wanted to keep this team here. By us committing to what’s announced today, I give him all of the credit. When he took over the team in 2018, we weren’t in very good shape, both from a competitive standpoint and a financial standpoint. Now, five years later, and we’ve made the playoffs all five years — first time our franchise has done that — and we’ve won the division the last three years — first time for our franchise — he’s very, very proud of what we’ve got going on here. For him to commit like this, he wouldn’t commit all this money if he didn’t believe in what we’re doing and what’s going to happen here.
On the naming rights...
DW: We’re in the second year, starting in September, of the continuation of the first deal. It will expire at the end of the 2023-24 season.
On the planned indoor music venue adjacent to the arena...
DW: I know Tom was talking to some of the concert promoters. We turn down quite a few concerts that are in that size because, first of all, some of the dates are hard to do when you have the opportunity to bring people in, and we don’t want to compete with other venues in the city. Certainly, these kind of shows — I don’t know how many we turn down — there’s enough of them to go around. It can be a multi-use theater because it’s going to be covered. It’s going to be indoors. There could potentially be other things that could happen inside there. I think it’s something that, when we start talking about how many concerts of that size to open the doors here and how expensive it, it just made a lot of sense to take it to the next level.
On the affordable housing provisions...
PI: It was extremely important. I’m not going to say that it was the issue, but it was close to being the issue. To our great enjoyment, Mr. Dundon, without a hitch, agreed to do that. I was on the city council for eight years, so I was sitting in the seats that the people that make these decisions are in. When you look at this area, it’s a lot of state-owned property and a lot of grass and trees. With the Bandwidth enhancement, 2,500 people will be there. The [NC Department of Health and Human Services] project on Blue Ridge Rd. is going to continue to explode. Today, the network of greenways and bike paths, truly someone can live here and go to work for HHS and Bandwidth without ever having to set foot on the road. They can do it by greenway connections. That’s an incredible thing. I think this potential development project is going to be the best thing to happen to West Raleigh since North Carolina State decided to build its university there. It’s going to be the catalyst for an extraordinary entrance into our city from the airport, and everything that’s happening on Blue Ridge Rd’s state-owned properties, it can only get better. The formal housing piece really allowed us to move forward in a fashion that solidified the support from the city and the county.
On the National Hockey League’s commitment to the process...
DW: Dan Barrett has been representing the CA in negotiating this deal. He’s got a relationship with the NHL. He, as far as this lease, had talked to [NHL commissioner] Gary Bettman. The two things they talked about were acquiring an All-Star Game three years after the renovations are done and then committing to another outdoor game. Dan asked me if he wanted to get it committed in the next two years. I said, “Give me five years. We need some time off here.” The NHL’s committed, within reason, of course, to both another All-Star Game and another outdoor game.
On what the housing provisions will look like...
PI: The best efforts will be made to have 80 percent adjusted median income which, for a family of four in Wake County, is about $91,000. This is truly designed for teachers, firefighters, police officers, folks that aren’t C-suite folks at HHS or Bandwidth. The desire, as we continue to grow, is to expand in our region, and one of the things we hear a lot about is the pressure on the affordability of the housing stock. This was a way for the owner to provide a relief valve for that concern in a very meaningful fashion.