BANGOR, Maine — City councilors said it’s up to the company that manages the Cross Insurance Center to prove it can take on a second Maine venue without affecting the Bangor arena’s bottom line if the firm wants its contract with the city to be extended.
Late last week, trustees for the newly branded Cross Insurance Arena in Portland — formerly the Cumberland County Civic Center — announced plans to enter contract negotiations with management giant Global Spectrum to run their newly renovated venue. A few months earlier, Bangor-based Cross Insurance bought naming rights for the arena.
The moves raised the eyebrows of officials in Bangor, who opened the doors of their arena just one year ago. The city hired Global Spectrum in 2011 to manage Bangor’s new $65 million arena and convention center, the Cross Insurance Center. The council signed a five-year contract with Global Spectrum in October 2012.
The question several Bangor city councilors are asking is how Global Spectrum can run Cross Insurance Arena and Cross Insurance Center without competing interests hurting the bottom line of either venue.
In a meeting prior to Monday night’s regular council session, Joe Imbriaco, general manager of Bangor’s Cross Insurance Center, and Doug Higgons, Global Spectrum’s regional vice president, sat down with councilors and staff to discuss how the new arrangement would work and outline their plans for the two Maine venues. Higgons flew up from Virginia for the meeting.
Councilor David Nealley expressed concerns the southern Maine’s significantly larger population base and higher income levels will drive more acts that Global Spectrum regularly courts to Portland instead of Bangor.
Higgons said both venues would have management teams that would work independently and, on occasion, they might compete for acts by submitting offers to tours. That might happen four or five times per year, he said. Both management teams, with Imbriaco heading up efforts in Bangor, would be tasked with attracting shows, events and revenue to their respective venues.
The fact that Global Spectrum is likely to reach a deal with the Portland arena also is likely a better result than the alternative, according to Higgons. The Cross Insurance Arena trustees also were in talks with SMG, another large venue management firm and a major competitor to Global Spectrum. SMG runs the Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester, New Hampshire. If that happened, Cross Insurance Center would have been in more direct, heated competition for performers and likely would have lost out on more acts.
“It’s to your benefit that we’re in Portland rather than our competitor,” Higgons said.
That strategic argument eased several concerns councilors had about why Global Spectrum wanted to run both facilities.
Cross Insurance has several advantages in its favor, the vice president added, which could cause acts to lean toward Bangor over Portland. It’s farther from Boston, and tours that stop in or near Boston aren’t likely to set another tour destination that close.
Cross Insurance Center also has a conference center that can host meetings, large and small. Global Spectrum is promoting its convention space aggressively — something it’s not doing with the floor at Cross Insurance Arena in Portland, Higgons said.
City Council Chairman Ben Sprague also asked Imbriaco to consider promoting Bangor’s nearby natural assets, including the Katahdin Region and Acadia National Park when courting events that would bring people to Bangor for extended stays.
The Cross Insurance Arena could have nearly 1,000 more seats than the Cross Insurance Center, depending on the seating arrangement for a particular show. That could be a deciding factor for some tours, according to Higgons.
Higgons vowed to be open with Bangor and Portland officials about why a particular venue was chosen over the other in any instance where the two were competing for a certain show or event. He said he believed Global Spectrum could make both venues successful.
The message from councilors: Prove to us you can make this work or we reserve the right to start shopping for new management once the Global Spectrum contract expires in 2017.
“It’s incumbent on us to prove to you that you made the right decision in going with us,” Higgons told the Bangor councilors.
Global Spectrum manages several similar-sized arenas in New England, including the Tsongas Center in Lowell, Massachusetts, the Mullins Center in Amherst, Massachusetts, and the Ryan Center in Kingston, Rhode Island.
Neal Pratt, chair of the Portland arena’s board, did not return a message seeking comment Tuesday.
“In the end, the trustees concluded that Global Spectrum is very well suited to achieve our two primary management goals: better access to national resources that will lead to more entertainment options and more efficient facility operations, and an approach that continues the tradition of local community involvement and integration,” Pratt said in a statement last week announcing the negotiations.
Follow Nick McCrea on Twitter @nmccrea213.