Nationwide Arena is approaching its 25th anniversary. The Franklin County Convention Facilities Authority says it's time for a major renovation to prepare for the next 25 years. The cost is estimated to be $400 million.
WOSU’s Debbie Holmes spoke with Derek Smith, General Manager of Nationwide Arena.
Debbie Holmes: So why $400 million? The building originally cost $175 million.
Derek Smith: Times have changed in 25 years. There are significant renovations that need to take place. A lot of our mechanical systems and our food and beverage kitchens and concessions are actually original to the building, along with all the finishes and a lot of the technology actually as well. Those dollars add up pretty quickly.
We're looking at about almost $200 million alone in kind of behind the scenes work that even the general fan wouldn't see. Those areas include the air conditioning units, our kitchen equipment, all of our fan coil units, kind of the mechanical spaces are plumbing and drain lines and whatnot. So, the numbers add up quick. It's a big number, but nowadays you see that across the board with a lot of major renovations of, you know, up to half billion-dollar renovations.
Debbie Holmes: When you talk about renovations, Gund Arena was built in 1994. It underwent $185 million in renovations in 2019. That's much less, less than half of what you folks are proposing.
Derek Smith: Our focus is on staying competitive, being a professional sports arena, especially because there’s different standards that we need to uphold. And we want to elevate our guest experience from the time people arrive and park at the arena, which would include a new garage. That alone is about $50 million.
When we look at our safety and security, our design of our entrances, to looking to expand the entrances and get people in the building faster and safer, there's a lot more elements that probably tie in. Not speaking to what renovations they've done, but on our end we've had a lot of different elements that will create additional costs. We're very landlocked here at Nationwide Arena, so taking over and having an office building to move offices to is an additional cost that probably a lot of arenas wouldn't see in making renovations.
Debbie Holmes: You're talking about the 375 North Front Street building.
Derek Smith: Yes.
Debbie Holmes: You're trying to build a terrace that connects from Nationwide Arena to the fourth floor of that building.
Derek Smith: That's correct. Yeah, we are looking to expand our upper concourse for our fans by creating a food hall on the fourth floor. And that would include an outdoor terrace space above an expanded Front Street entrance. So that full renovation would add about 15,000, almost 20,000 square feet of usable space for our guests on the upper concourse. Debbie, a lot of times in renovations they're done in premium spaces.
They're done on maybe the event level or lower levels of the arena. And oftentimes people who sit in the upper seats, the most avid fans, are forgotten and we are not forgetting them. It's important to us to expand their experience and give them more space on kind of a tight and narrow upper concourse that we have here.
Debbie Holmes: Where do you think you can get the money, and will you be asking taxpayers for funding?
Derek Smith: The CFA is currently working on a plan, and Gov. DeWine has been very vocal and we're thankful for the state who has kind of driven the idea of funding these projects through multiple sources, and I can't really speak to where they're at with that. But we're looking at, hopefully, them providing approximately maybe 25% of that total cost, which could be up to potentially $100 million.
The rest of that would be made up of some private funding, and that could be whether it be the team or whether it be our food service provider and then through bonds and things, so I don't think there would be an additional tax increase to the taxpayer. We are county owned so it is owned by the public. I think it plays into it somewhat, but I don't think anyone's looking to increase taxes to fund a renovation.
Debbie Holmes: Are you also trying to get some of the unclaimed funds money from the Ohio Commerce Department?
Derek Smith: I think the governor's plan or one of the...maybe a senator's plan was to tap into those unclaimed funds. I believe in the latest from... or one of the main options of what the governor was tackling was increasing the tax on sports betting to fund it. I think that everyone has kind of a different opinion of where that money should come from. Obviously, we're not looking to take away from money that is owed to residents of the state of Ohio. So we're going to support whatever plan the state comes up with to help us fund a renovation and put us into a new level of Nationwide Arena.
