By George Dalek - Record-Journal staff
HARTFORD — Former Whalers managing general partner Howard Baldwin won’t be in town this morning when the consulting firm hired by the Connecticut Development Authority to find prospective investors and operators for the Civic Center gives a tour of the aging facility to interested parties.
“No, there’s no reason for me to be there,” Baldwin, a movie producer, said from his office in Santa Monica, Calif. on Tuesday. “I know that building like the back on my hand. Inside and out.”
And so does the man that will represent Baldwin’s interests today and in the coming months.
Frank E. Russo Jr., the former executive director of the Civic Center from 1974-1983, is senior vice president for business development and client relations for Philadelphia-based Global Spectrum, a facilities management firm that is a subsidiary of regional television giant Comcast Spectator.
The Glastonbury resident, along with a team of co-workers from Global Spectrum, will take a walk-though of the Civic Center with representatives of Texas-based Conventions, Sports & Leisure International, the firm hired by the CDA last winter.
Baldwin, who has worked with Global Spectrum on different arena ventures around the country, said the firm is a partner on his current project — attempting to gain control of the Civic Center.
Baldwin and Russo said Global Spectrum is preparing a proposal to the CDA, which is due Dec. 1.
Madison Square Garden currently manages the Civic Center for the CDA, but the 10-year contract between the two expires in August of next year, although an extension is possible through 2013. The CDA is looking to cut some of its losses on the building, which run nearly $4 million a year.
The National Hockey League’s Whalers left Hartford in 1997 and relocated to North Carolina and were replaced by the American Hockey League’s Hartford Wolf Pack, owned by MSG and the parent New York Rangers of the NHL. Though the Wolf Pack have been the most successful team in the AHL over the last 10 seasons in terms of wins and losses, average attendance has dropped for five straight seasons to a low of 5,045 last season from a high of 7,221 in 1998-99.
Baldwin hopes to gain control of the building, make some renovations and run an AHL team of his own—the Whalers, of course—while “rebuilding the hockey market” to gain support for a possible NHL franchise and a new arena in the future.
“I’m enthusiastic about getting back (into the Civic Center) if I can,” said Baldwin, who ran the Whalers from their inception in Boston in 1972 as a World Hockey Association team to their move to Hartford in 1975 and a subsequent merger with the NHL in 1979 until he was forced out in 1988. “I’m not discouraged at this point in time. Things are moving along.”
“What we’re looking to do is to get in there and help maximize attendance (at the AHL level),” said Russo. “Hockey fans haven’t taken to the current team (Wolf Pack) and I get the sense there’s a solid core of Whalers fans that are just waiting to come back. Howard believes, and I also believe, it’s still a great hockey market.”
Russo said working with Comcast to expand TV coverage and marketing and the naming and branding rights to the Whalers, currently owned by the CDA, are just two of several things that could help boost hockey attendance under a Baldwin/Global Spectrum partnership.
Global Spectrum runs both major Philadelphia facilities, the Wachovia Center and Spectrum, owned by Comcast.
Comcast Spectator also owns the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers, the NBA’s 76ers and the AHL’s Phantoms, which play in the two facilities. In New England, Global Spectrum manages Springfield’s Mass Mutual Center, the Mullins Center on the University of Massachusetts campus in Amherst, Mass. and the Ryan Center in Kingston, R.I. on the campus of the University of Rhode Island.
Russo said today’s walk-through will give his group some more information about the Civic Center and its current operations. “We asked a lot of questions (of CSL and the CDA) and didn’t get a whole lot of answers, so this will give us an opportunity to check out the facility and hopefully talk with the current managers and get a feel of how it stacks up,” he said.
The firm HOK, which designs arenas and stadiums around the world, was engaged by CSL last spring to assess the current condition of the Civic Center, which opened in January of 1975.
The study, released in July, found that:
* The facility is well maintained and well operated by current management (MSG).
* Major systems have reached the end of their useful life.
* Major expansion of concession stands, restrooms and concourses is not feasible.
* The existing seating configuration does not meet current ADA regulations.
* The Civic Center does not meet current arena standards for a major professional sports franchise in terms of: Team spaces, premium spaces, guest experience and revenue generation.
Russo, who was in charge of the Civic Center during the infamous roof collapse in 1978 and the rebuilding and reopening in 1981, knows the building presents limitations and has its flaws.
“It is what it is,” said Russo. “It’s a 30-year-old building, with a lot of the problems associated with a 30-year-old building. But there’s not too many current facilities that old that are still in as good a shape as this one. It’s a building we can work with and it’s a building that can still be viable in this market. It’s a great market.”
Because of its large regional population base and market value, Russo said he expects plenty of competition to earn the rights to the manage the building, including MSG itself.
“Looking back, I spent some of the best years of my life running the Civic Center,” he said. “Except, of course, for the roof collapse. But that all worked out in the end, too, for the better. And because of it and the work Howard did, we were able to get an NHL team. But that’s the past and I’m looking forward to the future and December 1. It’s always been somewhat of a dream for Howard to come back here. Hopefully, we can help make it come true.”
