Hurricanes
Centennial Authority board chairman on PNC upgrades: 'If it feels like we're moving fast, it's because we're moving fast'
Philip Isley, the Centennial Authority board chairman, addresses his desire to quickly get facility upgrades for PNC Arena.
you don't have any insight into the sports gambling. I've certainly been following it. It was, it was a shame that the vote occurred the way it occurred. Um, but I'm still, I think there are efforts to try to resuscitate that this week. I'm not sure how successful they'll be, but people are certainly working on that, trying to make sure that this component of revenue stream ultimately gets into our state. What would it mean for centennial arena? Is there some sense of, of what it would mean for you guys? Well, we have not done any studies on that yet and frankly it may not result in any revenues directly to us just because we have tenants that might be have access to that. But what it does do is it activates parts to the building all the time. That's, that's the big deal we have, we have activation either on the property itself or within the building to our people are here, You know, at 6:00 on a Wednesday night in August when no one's here. Right. I mean, that, that, that then becomes another part of how we view this building as more of a community asset that is activated all the time versus just on game nights or concerts or other community events. Obviously the board you mentioned at the beginning, how much action you've taken since you became the chairman of the board seemed like this was another step to move very quickly. Well, yes, you know, if it feels like we're moving fast, it's because we're moving fast and we, I just feel like we have to and I think that when, when I became chairman, um we're exiting Covid and I knew what the pressures were from our funding partners within the inter local agreement, Wake County and Raleigh, they want us to see something, you know, they appropriated money to us a couple of years ago that we're going to get X amount of money to do enhancements and we've not done any enhancement yet. So they're chomping at the bit Now the money that we've asked for and received, we're gonna have to go back to them once we start getting plans designed, once we start getting an idea of what this is actually gonna cost, we may have to amend our request and obtain more funding. Um We don't know that looks like yet, but we need to at least have the concept available. So they get as excited as I am about what this building itself can can become and then you have the broader discussion of what happens around the building completely different track, but also in symbiosis to, you know, this is becoming an area that is becoming activated with band width of the street Epic Games and carry. You've almost got this corridor from the R. T. P. This can become sort of a high tech downtown area for, you know, an R. T. P. Type building as we continue to get more high tech around this area, the Blue Ridge corridor is getting expanded, You have HHS going right on Blue Ridge with a public private partnership. I mean this is becoming yet another part of Raleigh where raw dirt is very valuable and it's also very important to how we grow with all of the other interests coming into the city. You know, the national players, apples, the googles, the amazons, certainly guys didn't set a timeline today By 2025. Would you like fans that come here to be able to say, well this is dramatically different or is there is there a time horizon? You know, it's just so hard to, to say in my own brain. Yes, if I could wave my Magic Wand, that's what I do. But we're unique because we have two different tenants in two seasons that are distinct and you know, they both sort of start at the same time, but one can end obviously in june and so our window of building is really limited and I think that's going to be sort of our, our issue, that we have to really determine what we're gonna do, how we're gonna do it the way we're going to do it and do it very quickly, you know, 24 7 type operation proposals, current trends, things that are happening in arenas across the country. Is there one or two things you saw that said we need, okay, the coolest thing I did, I went to the inner city trip in Salt Lake City a couple months ago and it's the Raleigh chamber of that. I got a private tour of the jazz arena and out there. The food experience is much greater than sort of the alcohol and gaming experience because of the population goes to the game. And that was interesting that 75% of the revenues were derived from food. And so they're so food centric, they have extraordinary choices for food items, sushi, you know, barbecue, that's different than what we think of. But the other cool thing that I've learned is that they did $125 million dollar enhancement in 100 25 days. And he said it was the cool, I mean it was game on, you know, game last game boom. They're tearing up the stuff, you know, the next day and I think I want to talk to the people who helped you through that because we're going to have an even shorter window of time, I'm afraid. But that was needed. I saw it for myself. You can actually do a lot of great things inside a building and a limited amount of time. If you've got the right people in place, the right logistics, it's basically a military precision type operation. So that was sort of neat Last one for me in in 2019. This project was thought about 200 million, 225 million certainly costs have risen only risen since then. And the scope of the work seems to have have increased. I mean, are we talking $500 million $700 million? It's gonna be a big number. I mean, I think what we're gonna, what I ultimately would love to see is an ala carte menu, Okay, this is gonna cost this, you know, what are your options, what do you get your more bang for the buck? Where are their funding opportunities? What we don't have to pay, you know, are there, you know, to the sponsorship discussion that they had? I really hadn't thought about that, you know, do you have sponsors of a certain brand or a certain product that might pay for an enhancement? So I think it's gonna be a bigger number than what we have seen before, but I'm even nervous to guess or speculate or even say it out loud for fear that everyone's gonna freak. But uh I know it's gonna be big, but we, if we're mindful of what we're doing, we're mindful of our goals and we're mindful of what our budget is, we can figure this thing out. Our board has an extraordinary amount of talent on it that have done big projects, continue to do big projects. So I think that that's I'm going to rely a lot on what these guys want to do and we'll move forward. We've got great consultants higher, we got great experts on this. I'm bullish. Great, thank you. What you bet on it being more than 200.