Jackson Free Press

Downtown Jackson Partner President Ben Allen is pushing the idea of a new arena in Jackson and wants to invest about $100,000 in a feasibility study to vet the endeavor.

Addressing a crowd of about 100 at the TelCom Center Oct. 2, Allen based the potential success of a new Jackson arena upon the relative success of a similar arena in Arkansas.

"They got together, and they said, 'We're going to be somebody; we're going to make something of ourselves,Ҕ Allen said, describing the determination of a handful of Little Rock city officials and advocates to herald the North Little Rock Alltel Arena.

Officials successfully sold the idea of an $84 million project to local businesses around 1995, which invested enough in the project to make it debt free by the time supporters cut the ribbon in 1999.

"A lot of people in a lot of different areas came together to make this project work—the whole state of Arkansas, basically," said North Little Rock Alltel Arena General Manager Michael Marion.

Little Rock and nearby cities worked with Pulaski County and agreed to a temporary sales tax increase. The state of Arkansas kicked in an additional $20 million in state money, while organizers helped finance the project by pre-selling suites and skyboxes.

Marion warned the TelCom audience that the Little Rock arena makes more money some years than others, but added that the expectation shouldn't be that the arena itself will be the sole source of revenue.

Major international acts, particularly popular acts such as U2 or Coldplay, rarely touch down in the South compared to the northern states or East or West Coast states, according to Ticketmaster sales. Memphis and New Orleans, once major venue sites, do not get the attention they used to. Todd Hunt, director of the Tupelo's BancorpSouth Arena, said community support dictates the success of any arena.

"The most important thing is people buying the tickets. You need good corporate support for sponsor dollars and government support, but the bottom line are the bands. Make sure you can sell the tickets if you bring the big acts into town. ... There are more modern venues out there now and the competition is more fierce than it used to be. If an act can sell 20,000 tickets in LA for $200 a pop, but they can only sell 10,000 tickets in Jackson for $100 a pop well the math tells you you're going to play LA."

Hunt added that cultural demography also played a role in dictating whether a certain part of the country got more visits from Garth Brooks compared to Trent Reznor.

"It all comes down to the tickets," Hunt said at the gathering.

"The real motivation behind a project like this is the amount of revenue it creates for other local businesses," he said.

Regardless, Marion said the arena could prove a boon to local businesses with careful management. He discouraged, for example, potential builders creating "a sea of asphalt" or a multi-story parking garage to house arena patrons, instead recommending visitors be left to park around the downtown area.

"So people may have to park around downtown. What's wrong with that? What's wrong with people parking in front of other business, maybe getting distracted by other stuff going on," Marion said. He added that local businesses would likely charge visitors a fee to use their business parking space.

The Mississippi Coliseum, Jackson's current site of large venue acts, is almost 50 years old and remains outdated despite some renovations in recent years. The arena in the considerably smaller town of Tupelo brings bigger acts, according to Allen.

Former Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. said the city had considered the idea during his administration of a new venue similar in scope to what Allen is considering, but delayed action on the project, citing an overabundance of city projects.

"We were looking at the SWAC headquarters move and the possibilities that could come of that but we really didn't get into it. Clearly, the Coliseum is outdated, and some newer facility is needed, but we had too much on our plate. At the time, we really wanted to get the convention center in. To pursue both probably would have meant we would have gotten neither."

Nonetheless, Allen is putting the full weight of Downtown Jackson Partners behind the project: "Will it be difficult? Yes, but if they did it (in Arkansas), I know we can do it here," Allen said. "There's nothing wrong with Jackson that doesn't happen in any other city.