Rome, you’ve likely heard, wasn’t built in a day.
Nor will the modernization and renovation of the Crown Theatre and adjacent arena. The Cumberland County Board of Commissioners shelved the plan for the downtown Crown Event Center on June 4 due to escalating costs upwards of $163.5 million. On January 20, it voted to hire SfL+a Architects out of Fayetteville and Raleigh to renovate the buildings (circa 1968) along U.S. Business 301.
County commissioners voting to throw in the towel on the downtown Crown Event Center were Kirk deViere, Henry Tyson, Pavan Patel, Marshall Faircloth, and Jeannette Council. Voting in opposition were Glenn Adams and Veronica Jones. Tyson, Patel, Faircloth, and deViere voted to hire SfL+a Architects to redesign the U.S. 301 Business theater and arena, with Adams and Jones again in opposition. Council was absent for the vote.
“We will keep the Crown Commission updated and involved throughout this process,” deViere, the county board chair, said on January 28 about the 9-member Cumberland County Civic Center Commission.
Chair Jami McLaughlin, Nathan Cuffee, Raqi Barnett, Ken Burns, Peter Pappas, Chloe Thaler, Lynndora Thompson, and Allen Rogers didn’t learn anything new Tuesday at its monthly meeting from Pavan Patel, the county commissioner who is liaison to the Civic Center board. Board member Lee Spruill was absent.
Truth is, Patel told the board what it already knows—that SfL+a is the architect, Turner & Townsend Heery out of Atlanta will oversee the renovation construction, and the county is looking for a construction manager at risk.
“Our county management has been working with the Oak View Group team looking at our needs for the next step,” Patel said about OVG, which manages the Crown Complex for the county.
McLaughlin wanted to know if board members had any questions for Patel.
No questions from the Civic Center Commission members about the theatre and arena, although McLaughlin did say she is looking to hear more from county commissions “so we can get to work.”
Much of the meeting was directed at Crown Complex General Manager Seth Benalt. OVG lured hometown rapper and record producer J. Cole to perform at the Crown Coliseum as part of his The Fall-Off Tour concert, which is scheduled for September 23. You can’t blame commission members for being interested; the concert was a sellout within three hours.
‘A Methodical Process’
Here’s another truth for you.
Folks in this community are interested in just what, and more importantly, when these theatre and arena renovations will begin, and when we’ll have an upgraded theatre and arena.
“I would like to see it by the end of next year,” Patel, the 35-year-old first-term commissioner, said after Tuesday’s meeting. “We have made selections of major players. This is being done with nothing being shot from the hip. It’s not going to be easy.”
Something he is confident in is that Fayetteville resident Eric Lindstrom and his SfL+a Architects team are the right people for the modernization and renovation job.
“Once we get Eric’s feedback,” Patel said, “I think that will probably get us moving much faster.”
Benalt concurs with the commissioner. Renovating a standing building isn’t like starting anew from the ground up. He said, “until we know the scope” of how and what needs to be done is the rub. “It’s a methodical process.”
Jim Grafstrom just happened to be at the Crown Complex on Tuesday and attended the Civic Commission board meeting. Grafstrom, the complex’s former general manager from 2013 to 2021, knows the coliseum, theatre, arena, and exposition hall as well as anyone.
“It’s not a bad venue,” Grafstrom, 46, now a district manager for the Oak View Group, said about the aging theatre and arena. “But it is extremely outdated.”
He said the theatre needs better artist accommodations, new seating, and larger pre-concert space.
“OVG is very excited to support” the renovation, Grafstrom said. “Eric will determine the evaluation. I know Eric, and I am excited to see what he will come up with. It should be good for the community. It’s the gateway to the future. It will take some time. We want it yesterday, but the one thing we want is we want it right.”
An Architect’s Fingerprints
County commissioners believe they have the right person in Lindstrom, an owner of SfL+a Architects and its design director, to design the theatre and arena.
A native of St. Petersburg, Florida, Lindstrom has called Fayetteville home since 1992. You will find his architectural fingerprints all over this community, from downtown businesses, Festival Park, the Cape Fear Botanical Garden, and now to the $23 million renovation of the Cape Fear Regional Theatre, with construction underway by Samet Corporation out of Greensboro.
“It’s a billion-dollar company with one of the best safety ratings in the biz,” Mary Kate Burke, who is artistic director for the theatre, said Wednesday. “Demo started in mid-March. Most of it was down by groundbreaking” on April 4. “Right after the groundbreaking, they started with soil testing and underground work, which is plumbing, electrical and HVAC. It takes a long time and doesn’t look like much is happening, but it’s really the artery system of the building. It’s how power and water and air flows through it. So, it’s critical but not visible. Concrete started getting poured in December. They just began swinging steel this week.”
Before the construction, there was the design by Lindstrom and his SfL+a Architects team.
“It takes a special visionary to imagine something that has never existed before,” Burke said. “It takes an artist to translate the vision onto paper, and it takes profound dedication to see that vision to completion. Eric is, as we say in the theater, a triple threat. An artistic visionary with a quiet and steadfast determination to see his projects to their most elegant completion. He is a force for good in our community.
“It’s really starting to come together and grow, and it’s very exciting,” Burke said about the renovation, which will include a new lobby with a mezzanine for private events and a rooftop event space with a bar and second stage for live music. The expansion also will allow more space for scenery and costumes and teaching studios.
“It’s going to be a landmark in our city,” Fayetteville business owner Ralph Huff said at the groundbreaking on April 4. “When you build, you are building for the next generation.”
Epilogue
You don’t build Rome in a day, but …
“We will be done,” Burke said, “by year’s end.”
Or 9 1/2 months, if everything goes to plan, from demolition and construction to finishing the Cape Fear Regional Theatre project on Haymount Hill.
We won’t renovate the old Crown Theatre and arena overnight, either. For now, we’ll just have to wait for Eric Lindstrom’s vision of what the aging and outdated Crown Theatre and Crown Arena can be in this community, and what the future holds for the old entertainment venues along U.S Business 301.
The last word, if you will, from Jim Grafstrom.
“The one thing we want,” Grafstrom said it well, “is we want it right.”
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
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