For 58 years, the Alliant Energy Center’s Veterans Memorial Coliseum has been the stage for concerts, sporting events, family shows and memories that come with them.
With those memories fading in an admittedly dated venue, Dane County is seeking a private sector partner to provide capital investment and lead major renovations to the Coliseum. Redevelopment proposals are due Nov. 21.
Modernizing the Coliseum won’t come cheap. An analysis by real estate consultant Hunden Partners, a destination real estate development consultant, said renovations could cost about $125 million. Without them, by 2030, the venue is projected to lose over $1 million per year.
With renovations, however, the facility would generate over $1 million in yearly profit, according to Hunden Partners.
Modernization must-haves
The request for proposal includes building system upgrades and modernization of guest spaces in the 10,320-seat arena, which has been deemed ill-equipped for touring artists by Kevin Scheibler, executive director of the Alliant Energy Center.
The Coliseum is owned and operated by Dane County, and the county is looking for a partner that can help it compete with similarly sized venues in the region and turn a profit, while also continuing to accommodate major annual events like the World Dairy Expo and the Midwest Horse Fair.
According to the RFP, the county intends to partner with a qualified team that will be responsible for designing, building, financing, operating and maintaining the Veterans Memorial Coliseum as part of a major renovation project.
That team, the RFP said, should have developers, architects and/or designers and construction managers. The partner team also should include an arena operator.
“We’re looking for a partner that can bring experience to the project and then the financial resources to rehabilitate the Coliseum,” Scheibler said. “There’s an opportunity with the Coliseum to get it back to what it was when it was hosting all the major concerts and family shows and sporting activities.”
During its heyday, Scheibler said the Coliseum hosted more than 100 events a year. Now that number is under 40, and most are associated with an event at the Alliant Energy Center such as the dairy expo and horse fair.
“There’s an opportunity for a private partner to come in with some financial resources and help us rehabilitate it and get it back to operating and getting the events that they should be getting and that Madison should be getting,” he said.
Last year, Scheibler was named director of the AEC with nearly 40 years’ experience in facilities management, most recently as the executive director of the Credit Union 1 Arena and UIC Dorin Forum in Chicago, Illinois.
In a interview with In Business Madison published in January, he said the Coliseum renovation must include gutting the backstage area, redoing the whole seating bowl, putting in more concession areas and more food areas, and generally making it more appealing.
His thoughts haven’t changed, and he said AEC management intends to work closely with whatever partner secures the bid, especially on the guest-facing part of the renovation.
“That would be the guest experience such as food service or the seating accommodations or even how you get in and get out of the building,” he said. “We want to make it more enjoyable for the people that come to the building and then obviously more operationally efficient and attractive for potential clients.”
According to Scheibler, there are only a handful of companies that do venue renovation work. The county has hired CAA ICON, a top owner’s representative and strategic management consulting firm for public/private sports and entertainment facility owners, to drum up excitement for the project.
“They talked to several vendors, all of the major players, and they think we’re going to get multiple bids,” Scheibler said. “When they reported back on the conversations they had, the one consistent theme was that (potential partners) all recognized that Madison is a strong concert market, a strong entertainment market, and there is plenty of opportunity here.”
Dane County Executive Melissa Agard also cited the venue’s potential, especially with thoughtful investment and the right partner.
“I am hearing from the people that put the events on that if we don’t do anything, we’re going to continue to see our numbers taper off in the amount of events that are booking there, as well as the amount of people who are purchasing tickets,” Agard said.
The people involved in booking and delivering entertainment to the community are confident that with thoughtful investment from the right partner, the Coliseum will turn things around “and we’re going to be able to host many more entertainment opportunities and concerts within that facility,” she said.
Agard said Dane County residents don’t have to look too far for a similar turnaround story. In Champaign, Illinois, the State Farm Center is a 1960s-era dome-shaped arena like the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Through a renovation, it has been transformed into a state-of-the-art facility.
“They didn’t lose the culture and the soul of the building,” Agard said, “but they’ve been able to breathe new life into it and people are lining up to experience opportunities within that facility.”
Campus Catalyst
The county wants a partner to not only renovate the Coliseum, but potentially manage it as well.
“We’re looking for any opportunities,” Scheibler said. “We’re open to any kind of scenario. The only thing that we’re really not looking for is someone that would exclusively manage it but wouldn’t put any capital into it.”
Agard said renovating the Coliseum through a public-private partnership is the fiscally responsible choice at a time when the county faces a $31 million structural deficit.
Agard also said a revitalized Veterans Memorial Coliseum will be the catalyst for the next chapter of the AEC campus, “lighting that spark for multiuse investments on the campus and expansions of other assets, including the Alliant Energy Center Exhibition Hall.”
