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Feng Shui on Orange Street
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Business New Haven
4/29/2002
By: BNH
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Tear down Veterans Memorial Coliseum? The idea of razing the South Orange Street pleasuredome is hardly new, dating - well, nearly back to 1972, the year of its opening.
The unlovely and unloved Coliseum has few defenders. The city-owned 9,000-seat arena is a money pit (it will lose about a half-million dollars this year, and nearly twice that next year, according to its own projections) and attracts customers only under duress. Against it are poor location, dearth of parking (except for patrons fearless enough to navigate the “helix” to the elevated garage) and an overall perception that the building is old, ugly, icky, etc.
Coliseum critics have a pretty compelling case. But we think there may be another side to the story.
Seen in a slightly altered light, the Coliseum may be the Little Arena That Could. Subtract the building from the list of nighttime Elm City attractions, and what's left? The occasional concert at the Palace or Woolsey? Broadway road shows at the Shubert (how old is Robert Goulet, anyway?)? The two-weeks-a-year International Festival of Arts & Ideas?
Okay, so maybe tractor-pulls, bridal bazaars and minor-league hockey are not your style. Think instead of the Coliseum as a business success story in the making. After two and a half decades as a city-run patronage pit, the building under private management is accomplishing what once was unthinkable.
Working in very unfavorable market conditions - including, most recently, the October opening of a 10,000-seat, $52 million arena 20 miles away in Bridgeport and the Mohegan Sun's gleaming new 10,000-seat arena - the Coliseum's managers, SMG Corp. of Philadelphia, have made the best of a poor hand, and showed considerable pluck and creativity in doing so.
After the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus defected to the Park City, SMG booked a different circus. Earlier this month Arenafootball2's New Haven Ninjas debuted at the facility, and SMG may have caught the crest of a wave by luring the NCAA's women's hockey championships two years hence.
Meanwhile, Coliseum management has forged a productive relationship with Yale's athletic department that has yielded six ECAC men's hockey contests (including a January 6 game against reigning national champ Boston College) over the last two seasons and drew nearly 10,000 (albeit with generous ticket giveaways) last month for Yale's second-round NIT tourney tilt.
Meanwhile, New Haven lawmakers have asked Gov. John G. Rowland for $10 million to tear down the building (as a ward of the state, New Haven of course cannot raze its own buildings) in order to use the site for, perhaps, a new Long Wharf Theatre.
Maybe that's a good idea. But we're not thoroughly convinced. Lacking a venue for mass-market entertainments that draw more than 1,500 spectators at a pop, New Haven's downtown may just discover that it is all dressed up with no place to go.
There is room for more creativity in Coliseum programming. One potential growth area is college sports. The Coliseum's Yale initiative might be expanded to embrace nearby Quinnipiac University, which three years ago made the leap to Division I competition in ice hockey as well as men's and women's basketball.
New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr., who earlier proclaimed that his city's natural selling niche was arts and entertainment, recently told the Register he favored the arts attractions over sports. That may be a case of backing the wrong horse on the wrong track.
Who says we can't have the SBC Holiday Classic hoops tournament with Quinnipiac, Fairfield and two others? Or the United lluminating Hockey Challenge featuring Yale as host? We would buy a ticket.
It would be a shame if New Haven gave up on its arena just as it was beginning to attain a measure of traction. BNH
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