AURORA | Aurora is looking at the possibility of building a multi-purpose entertainment venue, city officials announced at a study session on Monday.
“This is an ongoing effort by the city to investigate the potential construction of a multi-purpose entertainment venue in the city,” said Councilmember Curtis Gardner. “There’s been a lot of work done and a lot more work to do, but tonight is an update on that process.”
A large entertainment venue has been near the top of the city’s wish list for decades. The effort is preliminary, without a site or even a firm idea of what kind of entertainment venue is possible.
The feasibility study, led by consulting firms Johnson Consulting and MIG, is taking a comprehensive look at the market potential, stakeholder engagement, facility requirements, financial analysis and economic impact of a potential entertainment venue.
“The study will cross a broad range of areas to study the possibility of an entertainment venue for Aurora,” said Laura Perry, deputy city manager.
This includes a market analysis, a facility and site analysis and a stakeholder engagement, which Perry said was done late last year, where they conducted a consumer preference survey and conducted a variety of focus groups and interviews with various stakeholders.
“I think this was one of the most well-responded to surveys from the city,” said Ryan Johnson from Johnson Consulting. “I just wanted to point out the high level of interest from the community.”
The stakeholder engagement process included nearly 2,000 survey respondents who revealed strong community interest and preferences, Mark de la Torre, director of Denver operations MIG.
Concerts, dance performances, festivals and events were some of the more popular priorities the community said they preferred in the survey. Concerts were the highest priority overall, and sports and high school events were also noted as possible interests, de la Torre said.
Concerts were almost more than double some of the other top-performing activities, and they would do well with the other top-performing activities the community had preferences for, Johnson said.
“There’s a lot of synergy and coalescence around concerts and all those other theater, dance performance, as well as festivals, which can happen at the venue potentially or also around the venue while an event is happening,” Johnson said.
The consulting team also presented case studies of successful multi-purpose entertainment venues and entertainment districts from around the country, such as the Toyota Music Factory in Texas and Fourth Street Live in Louisville, Kentucky.
The examples included indoor and outdoor seating opportunities, venues with capacities between 2,000 to 8,000 seats, historical districts that reuse older buildings and pedestrian malls. They also presented public-private partnerships with tax increment financing districts where the sales tax of surrounding hotels and retail businesses would be reinvested into the venue.
Johnson Consulting said that these examples highlighted the importance of flexible design, public-private partnerships and unique funding mechanisms like tax increment financing districts.
The team will finalize a recommended program and location, develop cost estimates and initial renderings and conduct economic and fiscal impact analyses to inform the city’s decision-making process.
“How is this facility going to get paid for? Who’s going to own it and operate it? These are some of the key questions that we’ll be answering there,” Johnson said.
Step #1 is, and has always been, getting Aurora out of the SCFD while keeping the tax and instead banking that money in a lock box account until Aurora has sufficient funds to do this right. Then Aurora needs an outdoor ampitheatre that will seat maybe 6 thousand with additional grass seating for another 8 thousand. Next to that facility, and sharing parking with that facility needs to be an indoor, year round theater, concert hall, dance stage. The facility should have rental fees based upon the size of an event, the amount of security needed, and upon location of the business renting the facility. Aurora theater and dance companies/schools ought to get a discount so that those businesses can be attracted to the city. The City should waive its Art in Public Spaces requirement for the facility and instead should offer rotating display spaces for local artists and artisans of all stripes. Unquestionably this will entail tolerance of some pieces deemed offensive or sacreligious as some folks just cannot help themselves, but maybe Aurora can be big enough to tolerate artistic expression.
And how is the city going to pay for this???
Forgive my skepticism but this initiative was badly chartered from the start.
What Aurora needs first and foremost is to attract people TO Aurora to spend in our bars, restaurants and shops so that our retail tax base can support city services and debt payments. Our retail tax base ranks near the bottom when compared to other Colorado cities (per capita). Meanwhile Council is borrowing money for simple road maintenance as they plan to raise our tax rates.
The goal of bringing the retail tax base up to Average should have been part of the initial charter here because with no strategy, City Council is leaving over $40 million/year in additional sales tax receipts on the table. That’s the gain if we bring retail up to Average.
Council envisions a 4,000-seat venue. But that’s not big enough for our HS graduations or big enough to make a dent in the retail tax base. What’s needed to 5,000 to 10,000 attendees 100 to 150 nights per year. This should have been envisioned from the start with a truly REGIONAL+TOURISM focus. What will entice leisure travelers to spend a night in Aurora? BUCKET-LIST entertainment on their first or last night in Colorado– ideally within 10 minutes of DIA.
Thus far Council has refused to even discuss exiting the Ponzi scheme known as the Denver Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD) and forming an Aurora equivalent with no change to the .1% sales tax rate so that the $8 million/year collected in Aurora can be invested in Aurora. Currently, over 91% goes elsewhere as the Fox celebrates its shiny new $250K sign.
What’s CM Gardner’s financial plan? Give away tax incentives to build something smaller? The City simply can’t afford it. Again note Council’s desperate plan to increase our property and/or sales tax rates.
When the City of Irving, Texas (pop. 232K) lost the Dallas Cowboys to Arlington, they replaced 800,000 NFL fan visits/year with 2 million concert fans. They did it with a formal public-private partnership with a consortium that includes LiveNation and that takes full advantage of their gateway position to DWF Airport. The Toyota Music Factory is CITY-OWNED, features seven stages, a movie theater and 20+ restaurants and shops. For more on Irving’s success see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi64Rhc7Zic
The City of Aurora has immense opportunities in entertainment but we’re entirely on the wrong path.
Attract people to Aurora retail how?
This town has few interesting restaurant options (usually of the ethnic variety) including a James Beard winner in Annette. But the rest are only chains that can survive the vagaries of rising costs and a shortage of help. Chick Fil A is a notable success in SE Aurora but nobody’s driving too far for more of those. There’s good eating on Havana, if you don’t have to walk too far at night. Save for some slim pickings in the Southlands, please direct me to any compelling retail clothing store in Aurora.
Nope, face it. There’s little reason to come for what Aurora currently offers. No amount of promotion is going to change that.
An immediate entertainment draw is the only hope to reach your goal. Something attached to the Gaylord? A huge world-music venue? A big new Broncos facility? A sports park to end all sports parks? Theme Park? Automobile racing?
Until then, it’s just low-rent burbs everywhere but in the far southeast. I doubt they want the crowds most of those would draw.
To reiterate “what’s needed to 5,000 to 10,000 attendees 100 to 150 nights per year. This should have been envisioned from the start with a truly REGIONAL+TOURISM focus. What will entice leisure travelers to spend a night in Aurora? BUCKET-LIST entertainment on their first or last night in Colorado– ideally within 10 minutes of DIA.”
Similarly, what will attract folks from the across the front range to spend on fun in Aurora in a manner where the E470 toll isn’t a big deal? Same answer: BUCKET-LIST entertainment.
So yes, in your words a “huge world-music venue” ideally operated by LiveNation, AEG, Ryman or similar as commercial partner in a public-private partnership with the City. See Irving, Texas’s world class success with the city-owned Toyota Music Factory at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi64Rhc7Zic
There’s nothing stopping Aurora from achieving the same other than the lack political courage and vision among city council.
Although Aurora has made some good steps towards the future, there are missteps as well (the poor RTD Lightrail access at Anchutz as an example. A major failure).
The ideas that are put forth above are probably not practical now, many vacant parcels have been filled in over the past couple of decades. What’s left, besides in the middle of nowhere? Not much.
Ideally it would be next to Lightrail access.
How about Eminent Domain for the 2 shopping centers at Chambers and Alameda (the north one not even having power for years for many units).
How about a land swap for the Delaney Homestead (severely underutilized) and/or the old Centre Hills golf course? These two parcels are connected, where the old driving range operated.
The City needs to either make a big move, or throw away the idea.
Ten minutes from DIA? Attached to the Gaylord? Nononono. Any proposed site must NOT add additional traffic to Pena Boulevard which has been a nightmare since Denver allowed developers to build thousands of residences with no additional road access, with high density office “campuses” planned for the future.
Gloria- Aurora”s retail per capita falls 14% below the state average and 59% behind Denver’s as city council borrows money for road maintenance and now considers increasing our tax rates.
Are you suggesting we shouldn’t fully exploit our regional accessibility to improve retail? What’s your alternative?
Just raise tax rates? Pena Blvd can only benefit the Denver economy because of why…?
There’s another 2 million people expected to move to the front range which will most certainly render Denver’s central venues even less accessible than they are now. Putting a major venue in Aurora would be excellent long term planning.
Although I agree Aurora could use a venue, for only the past 40 years, and this is not a new idea, here’s what appears to continue to be a major part of the problem.
One out of four or five of our citizens were born out of country and Aurora has become the center piece of multi-cultures in most peoples minds. Over the years this has become a bigger and bigger problem for community when it comes to average wealth. This, then, of course skews Aurora’s retail per capita. I don’t see how these immigrants will spend anything on event entertainment. Further many or most send lots of dollars back to their country of origin to further hold down the averages.
As the “experts” study this, I hope part of that study gets them looking at the Broomfield Events Center that was recently torn down as I recall. What happened? Broomfield is known to be fairly affluent and not a immigrant city.
Dick- 100% agree Aurora shouldn’t repeat Broomfield’s mistake. That’s precisely why I’m proposing Aurora partner with LiveNation, AEG, Ryman or similar under a formal public-private partnership where the commercial partner bears the risk but shares the reward. (Aurora gets the taxes, jobs, and business activity). And we invest the cultural tax collected here in Aurora instead of subsidizing Denver’s cultural gluttony as we’ve done for the past ~35 years.
Also as things stand, council is borrowing for simple street maintenance and talking about a ballot measure to raise tax rates. What’s the better alternative?
If a private party such as Live Nation wants to partner up with the majority of the risk, that needs a good look.
But as discussed? Broomfield was a bust. Kroenke never came through with their surrounding, promised development at the Rapids park. Tread carefully.
Would we have a shot at the new Women’s Soccer or Rugby franchises?
Could it be possible for the City to partner with the proposed race track south of DIA?
PS: Would love to know why a struggling Fox Theater needed a new sign? Dumb.