Chris Young played at the Glens Falls Civic Center, May 2. (Photo by Glens Falls Civic Center)
A staple in the community since 1979, the Glens Falls Civic Center will officially change ownership hands on Aug. 18 when a public auction is conducted to find a buyer for the 4,794-seat multipurpose arena located downtown in the New York city that currently serves as the home of the Adirondack Flames of the American Hockey League.
The City of Glens Falls and all involved are thinking in a most creative manner for how best to transfer ownership of a venue that, through recent years, has dealt with financial losses. The city set a $605,350-subsidy budget for venue operations and debt for 2014, while building manager Global Spectrum set a figure of $920,543. Regardless of which comes closer, the trend of losses has become too much to bear.
Once the barker yells “Sold!,” the primary stipulation the new buyer will be required to honor is the city’s lease with the Flames for the next three seasons. The team is an affiliate of the National Hockey League's Calgary Flames and is relocating this year from Abbotsford, British Columbia.
As for the new ownership? “We are under contract with the city to manage the civic center,” said Ike Richman, vice president, public relations at Comcast-Spectacor of the Global Spectrum-run facility. “However, if the city should be able to sell the venue via auction to an outside bidder we would no longer be involved.”
“The minimum bid is $1.5 million and will take place in Heritage Hall, a large meeting room that is attached to the arena,” added Brian Petrovek, president of the Adirondack Flames.
While an appraisal by Pomeroy Appraisal Associates estimated the sale value and land at $1.895 million, that was based on the venue's not having a professional hockey team, the minimum bid is required to satisfy the remaining debt on the venue and the city’s cost of advertising and conducting the auction.
“Conveyances of multipurpose urban civic centers are infrequent,” said Richard Coughlin, MAI, senior vice president of Pomeroy Appraisal Associates, Inc. “The vast majority of civic centers/sports arenas in this country are publicly owned and only on rare occasions is ownership vested with a private entity, primarily because such properties generally cannot exist without taxpayer assistance or subsidies.”
As an example, Coughlin noted that the title to 29 out of 30 AHL arenas is vested in the name of the respective city, town, county, etc., which provides resources necessary to ensure continued operations and without which they may likely falter. Indeed, having the Flames skating for at least the next three seasons with an option to renew for up to two more seasons is a positive once the bidding starts.
The decision to place the civic center up for auction was not one made lightly, according to Glens Falls Mayor John “Jack” Diamond. After looking at the numbers and wrestling with the best decision to make over the past 18 months, Diamond concluded that conducting an auction was the direction to ensure the future of the venue as well as to stop the financial drain.
“Annually, the civic center operates at a deficit of between $550,000 and $800,000 a year, and the taxpayers of the City of Glens Falls, through their property taxes, have made up the difference,” Diamond said. “With soaring costs for other things such as health insurance and retirement costs for employees, the city can no longer ask residents for increased taxes to support the civic center. So in an effort to provide some relief to taxpayers, the city is seeking a buyer for the civic center.”
As for the actual process of auctioning the facility, Diamond said that his office prepared packets of information that prospective bidders could request. The packets contained information about the physical property, profit and loss information, copies of existing contracts with the AHL team and management company as well as other miscellaneous information.
“Those who wish to bid may register the morning of the auction and must present evidence of possessing the $150,000-deposit that will be required of the successful bidder,” Diamond said. “At 11 a.m., the building will go up for bid at a public auction. We’ve had about a dozen parties pick up bid packets so there appears to be a fair amount of interest in the building. The city's Common Council must vote to accept the winning bid at the council meeting on Aug. 26.”
Interviewed for this article: Richard Coughlin, (315) 422-7106; John “Jack” Diamond, (518) 761-3805; Brian Petrovek, (518) 480-3355; Ike Richman, (215) 389-9552