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A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
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Business New Haven
7/8/2002
By: BNH
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In between being forced to write nice things about arena2 football and UHL hockey, Register sports columnist Dave Solomon occasionally wanders onto some profound truths.
One of those sublime moments took place on May 31, when Solomon came to praise Veterans Memorial Coliseum, not to bury it.
“I despise the New Haven Coliseum,” Solomon acknowledged, identifying himself as a member of quite a large club. But the building's virtues, he observed, “deserve a final say before we blow anything away.”
Apparently those virtues, such as they may be, are not going to get what they deserve. An “independent audit” by the politically connected accounting firm of Scillia, Dowling & Natarelli, released July 2, has concluded what everyone with half a brain knew it would conclude: that the Coliseum must die.
Here are some numbers to chew on: $30 million - that's the sum Mayor John DeStefano Jr. estimates it would cost to bring the aging hulk up to code. $3,032,000 - that's what the private management firm, SMG, says it needs to keep the building open through June 2004. $20.2 million - that's what the city calculates it would save by knocking the Coliseum down (that's the purported “facilities” savings; the operational cost savings is a mere $8.4 million).
Here's another number: 300,000 - that's the number of people who place life and limb in jeopardy to attend events at the Coliseum each year. As Solomon points out, that's more than the Shubert or the Palace. More than Long Wharf Theatre, the tennis tournament, or even the International Festival of Arts & Ideas. A lot more.
One group alone, the Jehovah's Witnesses, which hold their annual national convention at the Coliseum, bring in 80,000 visitors each summer. They occupy every hotel room from Milford to Guilford. They eat in our restaurants, and they buy our stuff. (Who knew?)
The Coliseum is unlovely, and unloved. For years Business New Haven occupied office space just across the street from the building, and we would sit - sometimes for hours at a time - watching and waiting for the structure to collapse all by itself.
Now, apparently, it's going to get some help. The City Hall folks spook easy, we guess: the Arthur Andersen - oops, we mean Scillia Dowling - audit cites competition from facilities such as Hartford's Meadows Music Centre (26,000 seats) and the new Mohegan Sun Resort Casino arena (10,000) as reasons the Coliseum can't fill event-days. That's like saying the New Haven Knights can't stay in business because of the New York Yankees.
Meanwhile, under SMG management, annual event-days at the Coliseum have grown from a low of 71 in 2000 to 113 in 2002. The folks at the brand spanking new 10,000-seat Arena at Harbor Yard have been tearing out their hair trying to figure how to compete with the Coliseum. So far, they have failed (see BNH, June 24).
The crux of DeStefano's argument is that it makes no sense to throw good money after bad. Those are good fiduciary instincts on the part of someone entrusted with the public's money.
The study's foregone conclusion that “The aggregate economic impacts associated with the possible closing of the New Haven [sic] Coliseum on the New Haven economy, prior to possible demolition, are extremely modest in scope,” neglects to paint the larger picture.
If the Coliseum comes down, what will replace it? Where will local children go to see the circus, or the ice capades, or (God forbid) the monster truck show? The answer is: nowhere. In a couple of decades or so, when we're all old and grey, some savant will determine that New Haven needs an arena and, after five years of wrangling with Hartford for money, it may actually get built.
Then we can begin this tawdry cycle all over again.
And all this time, we thought New Haven was supposed to be the “arts and entertainment” capital.
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