The 131,000-square-foot event center originally scheduled to come to downtown Fayetteville by late 2025 now must be redesigned in the face of likely delays and increased project costs, county commissioners were told Tuesday.
During a meeting of the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners’ Crown Event Center Committee, those spearheading the project explained to commissioners Jeannette Council, Glenn Adams and Jimmy Keefe that unexpectedly high supply and labor costs and the complicated nature of the approved design had delayed the project and increased its estimated cost by almost $32 million, from $131.7 million to $163.5 million.
Council, Adams and Keefe are the three members of the committee.
“We felt it necessary to show you where we are at right now, but we also need to know how to move forward,” said Matt DeSilver, an area manager for MBP Carolinas, the project manager for the county.
DeSilver said the project’s new completion date is now December 2026.
Members of the committee were furious at the news.
“2026 is just not acceptable to me, and I don’t think it’s gonna be acceptable to the board,” Adams said. “I don’t know [if] it’s acceptable to this community … I think we were pretty clear when we came into this that we were under a time crunch.”
The Crown Event Center in downtown Fayetteville is set to replace the Crown Theatre and Crown Arena at the Crown Complex on Coliseum Drive. The old Theatre and Arena, which opened in the late 1960s, do not comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act. The county faces a deadline of Oct. 31, 2025, to replace the theater and the arena with an ADA-compliant facility.
Keefe said he didn’t understand why pertinent information had not been shared with the committee until now.
“I know good and well we’ve waited at least nine months with contracting and waiting on this or waiting on that, and we could’ve done this quicker,” he said heatedly. “I’ve been working on this for 10 years, and I’m ready to walk away, I’m so disappointed right now.”
Commissioners approved a $131.7 million design back in May, but DeSilver said Tuesday the new estimated cost for the project is $163.5 million, based on calculations made in December.
DeSilver told the committee that the estimated 24-month timeline and cost for the event center came from research on similar construction projects in other cities, such as the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts in Greensboro, which was completed in 2020. Adams said he did not understand why commissioners were given estimates with outdated numbers.
“We know after Covid, everything changed,” Adams said. “I would’ve never said we could do that in 24 months using six-year-old numbers.”
The committee went into closed session for 50 minutes, citing attorney-client privilege. When committee members emerged, they voted unanimously to request a redesign of the center with a maximum price tag of $145 million, to be shared with the county by 1 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 22.
County spokesperson Brian Haney said the project committee will meet again after receiving the redesign to discuss next steps.
Reporter Lexi Solomon can be reached at lsolomon@cityviewnc.com or 910-423-6500.
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