Downtown Fayetteville advocates have an urgent message to Cumberland County’s leaders: Do not cancel construction of the 3,000-seat downtown Crown Event Center.
While the Event Center project, previously scheduled to open in spring 2027, is still technically underway, the county commissioners are seeking an estimate for how much it would cost to rehabilitate the old Crown Theatre and Crown Arena, about 3 miles away on U.S. 301 South. The $145 million Event Center on Gillespie Street is supposed to replace those two facilities.
The downtown activists are concerned that recent actions by Cumberland County Board of Commissioners have clouded the future of the downtown performing arts center and meeting space.
“Keep the Crown Downtown,” longtime downtown business owners Hank and Diane Parfitt said in a letter to Commissioners Chair Kirk deViere and the rest of the board. “This delay and threat of moving the Crown Event Center somewhere else is worrisome in the extreme.”
Two downtown Fayetteville organizations, the Cool Spring Downtown District and the Downtown Alliance, echo those concerns.
“Cool Spring Downtown District Champions Performing Arts Center Project in Downtown Fayetteville, NC,” headlines a news release dated Tuesday from the downtown arts and events organization.
“On behalf of the Downtown Alliance, we write to reaffirm our strong and ongoing support for locating the new Crown Event Center in the heart of downtown Fayetteville,” says an April 16 letter from the board of the downtown business owners organization to the county commissioners.
Some of the points the downtown people made:
- The Parfitts said the downtown properties they renovated (their City Center Gallery & Books, and the nearby Gaston Brewing Restaurant) have tripled their property tax values and generate sales taxes. “We need more investment downtown and we need a big project like the Crown Center to attract investment money,” they said.
- “Your goal is not to just build a better box for shows,” the Downtown Alliance said. “We ask that you invest in a downtown anchor that lifts everything around it — shops, restaurants, services, hotels, housing, the tax base, and civic pride. You cannot renovate your way to that kind of regional impact.”
- “Downtown Fayetteville is a cultural center for the entire city, and the location of the performing arts center in the arts and entertainment district will serve to amplify all of the artistic talent, creativity, and commercial activity that we believe will not only meet the evolving needs of our community but also foster long-term economic vitality for a bold future we can all embrace,” the Cool Spring Downtown District said.
Is the Crown Event Center dead?
Officially, the county government’s Event Center project on Gillespie Street is still ongoing.
But at the same time, the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners took actions in March and April that suggest the commissioners could halt the Event Center and instead rehabilitate the old Crown Arena and Crown Theatre — the venues that the Event Center is supposed to replace.
The Arena and Theatre venues were dedicated in January 1968 as the Cumberland County Memorial Auditorium and Exhibit Hall. They are on U.S. 301 several miles away from downtown Fayetteville. After more than 57 years of service, the old buildings need repairs and upgrades, former County Commissioner Jimmy Keefe has said. Keefe was the commissioners’ leading advocate for the downtown Event Center.
Since 2015, previous county Boards of Commissioners considered whether it was a better idea to upgrade the old facilities or replace them and shut them down. They chose to move ahead with a new venue, the Event Center, and to place it downtown to contribute to downtown revitalization.
The most recent Board of Commissioners in office before the November elections held a celebratory groundbreaking ceremony on Oct. 25.
Three of the seven members of that board, including Keefe, left office on Dec. 2.
The new board, with three new members and under the leadership of newly elected commissioner deViere, put the brakes on the Crown Event Center project on March 5. The board paused construction for 30 days and had a consulting lawyer investigate a $1.9 million architectural fee from the EwingCole firm.
The investigation resulted in a 1,000-plus page report, deViere said on April 8. The county is not releasing the report to the public.
The commissioners on April 7 voted to allow the contractors to resume construction. Then on April 14, deViere said the county is doing two things:
- In anticipation that the cost will exceed the previously set budget of $145 million, a new estimate is being calculated.
- The county hired Davis Kane architectural firm of Raleigh to assess what it would cost to repair and upgrade the old Crown Arena and Crown Theatre.
Did these actions signal the county commissioners were considering whether to cancel the downtown Event Center and redirect resources to the Arena and Theatre on U.S. 301?
“We are asking for an updated cost to modernize and renovate the theater and the arena. Nothing more, nothing less,” deViere said on April 14. The commissioners’ previous information on that idea dated back to 2015, he said, and costs have changed since then. “So I think it was a question that was asked that we need to have answered, and it’s a responsible action by this board to do that.”
Why would the county pay an architect to estimate what it would take to rehab the Crown’s old facilities if there are no plans to upgrade them?
“Because it’s responsible,” deViere said. “Because long term, we may want to put something else out there.”
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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