Carolina Hurricanes owner, NHL commissioner push for arena upgrades — and it’s about time
This wasn’t the first time Gary Bettman had toured the parking lots around PNC Arena, soaking in the atmosphere, accepting the cheers and jeers of the exuberant hockey fans who recognized him as his golf cart whizzed past.
The NHL commissioner has seen all this before, including Carter-Finley Stadium where the Carolina Hurricanes will host their first outdoor game next season. That’s not why Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon and president Don Waddell were escorting him around the property.
Bettman was looking around PNC with new eyes, to see what isn’t there yet, but might be there someday: Dundon’s vision for what the land outside the arena could become, the arena as the hub of a new commercial district with offices and residences and restaurants and a sports book and an outdoor concert venue.
After the tour, Bettman went inside the arena and met with a handful of key members of the Centennial Authority, the state board that oversees the arena, and his message was as clear as it was pointed: This arena is no longer up to modern NHL standards, nor is the area around it.
“There are a couple of things in play,” Bettman told The News & Observer. “First, on behalf of the league, we like being here and I know Tom likes being here and wants to be here. But obviously there’s work to be done to make sure that the team and the community have something that is today’s standards. The Centennial Authority seems engaged, which is important, and I think there’s a great vision for not just the arena or the team but for the entire area. I think that vision is exciting and it’s a win-win for everybody.”
The authority members did not necessarily need to be told that. The authority has had a plan to renovate and upgrade the arena, to bring it up to 21st century standards, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars in tourism tax money earmarked for that purpose, but it was delayed by the team’s sale to Dundon by Peter Karmanos in 2018, negotiations over a lease extension and then the pandemic. It will need to be updated again for current trends and construction costs, a process that will probably take about a year if it starts again now.
But Dundon has also been pushing to activate his right of first refusal to develop the land around the arena that has sat paved and empty since the building opened in 1999, and progress on that has been slow. That could change Thursday at a special board meeting of the Centennial Authority, when Bettman’s message will be relayed to the full board and the effort to reimagine not only PNC Arena itself but everything around it must truly begin in earnest.
It’s long overdue.
An old arena, a new downtown?
The costs and logistics of building a new arena in downtown Raleigh remain as foreboding as they did in the mid-’90s. And if you can’t bring an arena downtown, can you bring downtown to the arena? The Battery Atlanta, the massive development around the Braves’ new stadium in exurban Cobb County, is the latest example of a trend that has surrounded similarly marooned arenas in places like Anaheim and Tampa and elsewhere with infill development.
Karmanos never had the interest nor the funds to develop around PNC. Dundon has both, and experience doing it in Texas. He has a vision for a new western gateway to the city, across Wade and Edwards Mill from the massive new Bandwidth campus under construction, a mixed-use development and entertainment district on the scale of North Hills but with the arena and new concert venue at its center.
“We’re trying to set a standard for the experience here,” Dundon told The N&O. “That’s part of it. You get to come and be entertained. So for me it’s important that there’s more than just the game. We know we can do a good game but we need to offer other things, which is consistent with other major sports. We are way behind. I’m willing to commit to the capital to work with them. I’m going to spend a lot of money to build all this stuff, we just need a partnership. I think everybody wants the same thing.”
The question facing the arena authority, the state of North Carolina and N.C. State is how to navigate the hurdles of turning over state-owned land for private development, as was done with Bandwidth, and do it in a way that N.C. State, which has long fought to preserve as much surface football parking as possible, is willing to accept.
“We have two tenants we love dearly at the Centennial Authority and we have rights and obligations to both tenants,” Philip Isley, the former Raleigh city councilman who took over as authority chairman in November, told The N&O. “To the extent we can make them both happy at the same time, we’ve done a great job. My role and the role of the Centennial Authority is how can we accomplish something that benefits taxpayers, the city, the county and frankly the region in a noticeable way.”
Athletic director Boo Corrigan has in the past expressed a willingness to give up some surface parking if the university benefits in other ways — the development could include a new basketball practice facility or retail or hospitality space that creates new revenue streams for N.C. State; the Wolfpack can really call its own shot here — but chancellor Randy Woodson, an ex officio member of the Centennial Authority, has taken a more cautious stance in the past.
Woodson was unavailable for comment Tuesday, but the university released this statement upon request for comment:
“We value our partnership and want to continue to help PNC Arena and the Hurricanes be successful,” Brad Bohlander, chief communications officer at N.C. State said in an emailed statement. “However, as a primary tenant and partner of PNC Arena, short and long-term impacts to NC State need to be considered in any planning or decisions. While we are interested in enhancements that might improve the experience for our fans, supporters and student-athletes, we also have to protect N.C. State’s ability to provide the best fan experience, generate revenue, and remain competitive in the ACC in men’s basketball and football now and in the future.”
There are ways to address the tailgating issue without tampering with the tailgating culture that is so crucial to N.C. State football and the Hurricanes alike. There would still be some surface lots, to be sure. But there’s also a growing industry in the college athletics space of turnkey tailgating experiences detached from parking, with tents and power and ice in central locations. The culture is not necessarily anchored to asphalt.
And let’s not forget one reason tailgating is so popular for football and hockey fans is the complete dearth of options around the stadium and arena. Given the choice, some fans might prefer to eat and drink in an air-conditioned or heated restaurant or bar rather than in their parking spot. High-rolling boosters could valet park and be whisked directly to their suites, with their cars waiting for them when the game is over. All of these amenities are available elsewhere.
A new western Raleigh gateway
Either way, this much is clear: In Raleigh, in 2022, that land is too valuable to lie fallow in the service of five or six football games a year. It’s a blank sheet in a prime location in a city with precious few of those left.
“Does this area become another, not necessarily Midtown, but is it Westtown? Arena West?” Isley said. “It’s perfectly poised and situated to be much more influential than anyone envisioned 25 years ago.”
This all goes hand in hand: The city and county aren’t going to approve a badly needed renovation package costing as much as $400 million without a long-term lease extension with the Hurricanes, and Dundon isn’t going to do that without a green light to move forward outside the arena.
These are all things that can drag on for years or be settled quickly if the right people want them to be. And some of the challenge for Bettman, Dundon and Isley alike is finding ways to convince key people — with both the state and State — that it needs to happen quickly. This is an inflection point for the arena, a fork in the road for its future. The arena is almost 25 years old and still sits surrounded by empty parking lots.
That’s why Bettman, who has long remained committed to this market through good times and bad, made this the first leg of a trip that will take him to six cities in five days: “I could have gone anywhere tonight,” he said. “I’m here.”
It’s why Thursday’s Centennial Authority meeting will broach exactly this subject under the vague agenda item “long-range planning discussion,” with a board that is more known for careful stewardship of the arena — to its credit, for sure — than bold vision and decisive action.
But the time has come for the latter.
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This story was originally published May 3, 2022 at 3:24 PM with the headline "Carolina Hurricanes owner, NHL commissioner push for arena upgrades — and it’s about time."
