Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 3, 1991 TAG: 9103030175
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER MUNICIPAL WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
When the spotlights go out, the rock musicians and other performers go to the next stop on their tour. The spectators go home.
What they leave behind isn't pretty.
Tons of trash. Soda spilled on seats and floors. Popcorn littered in the aisles. Graffiti scratched on the walls. Mirrors broken in restrooms. Stopped-up commodes.
When the circus departs, it leaves behind hay, manure and an odor.
When the monster trucks go, tons of dirt have to be scooped up and hauled away.
Spectators "walk in and see everything set up and ready for a show or a basketball game. It looks nice and pretty then," said Bob Chapman, civic center manager. "They should see it afterwards."
The condition of the center was questioned when Metro Conference athletic directors toured it in December in advance of the league's basketball tournament - to be held Thursday through Saturday. -
Members of the contingent complained about the 10,000-seat coliseum.
They saw a building badly in need of painting in places. The once-white hallway wall outside the locker rooms was a dirty, dingy gray. One athletic director pointed out a locker room door from which the paint was chipped away.
"This has to be embarrassing" to the hosts, another athletic director said.
Maintenance and custodial crews often go to work immediately after the last spectator files out because often another show or event moves in the next day. They clean and repair damage.
"You can sweep up the popcorn, but you can't sweep up Coke. You have to mop and scrub," Chapman said. "After the circus, you have to use good cleaning products so the people in the next show don't feel like they are in a barn."
The civic center holds an average of 193 events a year. Some last several days.
The complex, which includes an auditorium, coliseum and exhibit hall, is used an average of 259 days a year. About 530,000 people attend events annually, and more than 10 million people have gone through the doors in the center's two decades.
Cleaning and repairing the buildings after events is not cheap. In the current fiscal year, the budget included $280,000 for maintenance work and $91,000 for custodial services. In the previous year, the center spent $341,513 on maintenance and $95,242 for custodial work.
A crew of five maintenance workers and two custodians is assigned full time to the center. The city brings in additional maintenance and custodial workers as needed, Chapman said. It also uses outside contractors for some maintenance work.
Chapman concedes that some things didn't look pretty when the ahletic directors toured the complex, but he blames that partly on the timing of the tour.
"The cosmetic changes we would have normally made last summer were postponed because I didn't have the money to do it twice - and I wanted to wait until we got closer to the tournament."
If the locker rooms, halls and coliseum walls had been painted last summer, he said, they would have needed to be repainted before the tournament.
Chapman had planned to begin the painting and face-lift renovations in January, but the athletic directors toured the complex sooner than he expected.
Some projects were not scheduled to begin until early February - after a monster truck show and circus moved out.
Putting off painting and renovations at civic centers until just before a major tournament or event is not unusual, Chapman said.
The Mississippi Coast Coliseum and Convention Center in Biloxi, the site of last year's Metro Tournament, used the same approach.
"We did most of our refurbishing work between January and March," said Matt McDonnell, assistant director of the coliseum there.
About $15,000 was spent on painting and improvements to locker rooms, the scoreboard and other facilities after the Metro athletic directors toured the coliseum, McDonnell said.
Chapman said planning for the tournament was hampered by a fire in the auditorium last September. The blaze closed the auditorium for four months.
"It couldn't have happened at a worse time. Seventy-five percent of my time in September, October and November was tied up with the fire and the aftermath," Chapman said.
During the past two months, the civic center has been abuzz with painters, carpenters, electricians, plumbers and other workers.
As a result of the publicity about the condition of the coliseum, Chapman has vowed that no one will find a spot during the tournament that needs painting.
"I won't be accused of not painting something," he said. "If it's ever been painted before, it will be painted again."
The city has spent more than $100,000 on special improvements and renovations to get the buildings ready for the tournament.
The basketball games will be played in the coliseum, but the auditorium and exhibit hall will be used for receptions and other events. A cheer and dance championship will be held in the auditorium Friday.
The improvements included new floors in public restrooms, cleaning the tile floors and the exterior of the buildings facing the center plaza, adding 1,000 new concert-seat chairs for the coliseum, cleaning the padded seats in the coliseum and installing new steps for the exhibit hall.
The city has spent about $19,000 for Hydra-Rib basketball goals, the type of baskets used in the National Basketball Association and many top college arenas. Portable lockers have been built and others have been borrowed so all locker rooms will be fully equipped.
Chapman and other city officials have vowed that the complex - including the fire-damaged auditorium - will be in top shape for the tournament, which is expected to attract thousands of spectators.
But the publicity over the complaints focused attention on the regular maintenance of the buildings.
Chapman said he tries to schedule many routine repairs during the summer, when bookings are down.
Painting is done as needed, he said, although the ceilings in several locker rooms had not been painted since the building opened in March 1971.
Civic Center officials try to inspect the building weekly to see where repairs are needed, he said.
The center has begun to show its age. Chapman thinks spending on maintenance has been sufficient, but he added that the city probably will have to spend more in the coming years.
"Obviously the older the building gets, the more it will take to make it look modern and decent," he said. "Equipment wears out and has to be replaced - and that can be expensive."
The center already has replaced the chillers for the air-conditioning system, at a cost of $230,000. Money for major renovations and the replacement of equipment is budgeted separately from regular maintenance.
Some equipment requires regular maintenance, such as the ice-making system, although it attracts little public attention. "You have to do preventive maintenance on equipment like that, even if it isn't being used, to make sure it's ready to go when we need it," he said.
"There are many things to be maintained that most people probably never think about," he said. "It's a seven-day-a-week job for us."
by CNB