By Cathy Spaulding
Phoenix Staff Writer
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Get a few thousand basketball or country music fans together and the Muskogee Civic Center rocks with excitement.
“Depending on the team, we’ve had as many as 4,000 to 5,000 people show up, and we had to turn people away,” said Steve Willcox, potentate-elect of the Bedouin Shrine Temple, which sponsors the Bedouin Shrine Classic Basketball Tournament each year at the civic center. “That’s when Sequoyah High School played Tahlequah. When Muskogee plays Hilldale, we get good crowds as well.”
Carrie Underwood nearly packed the center with 3,700 fans when she was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame last fall.
But Carrie and the basketball powerhouse teams can’t come to Muskogee every week. According to city figures, the civic center often ends a fiscal year with a deficit. The civic center, which receives most of its funds from the city, earned an estimated $501,800 in revenues for the 2010 fiscal year ending June 30. There was no surplus carried over from 2009. Total expenses for 2010 were $505,801.
City funds made up nearly half of the revenue, with $250,000. The civic center earned $115,000 in rental income, $14,000 in ticket sales and $70,000 in concessions. There was no surplus carried over.
The 2011 fiscal year budget holds higher hopes, even a profit with $518,176 budgeted for expenses and $521,399 anticipated in total revenues (including the $4,000 deficit). Of that, the city’s allocation remains at $250,000, but rentals are projected to raise $120,000.
Muskogee City Manager Greg Buckley said the shortfalls are no surprise.
“The civic center is a community supported facility, built to enhance the quality of a community,” Buckley said. “It’s not set out to be a big profit generator or a money-maker for the city.”
As a result, the civic center is more like a city-managed community center than, say, Tulsa’s BOk Center, which attracts big name concerts and major conventions.
“The Tulsa Convention Center was not established to make money, the BOk was,” he said.
A spokesman for the Tulsa Convention Center said both that facility and the BOk are owned by the city and managed by SMG Management.
Other Muskogee-owned facilities have had varying degrees of success. River Country Waterpark consistently shows an annual profit. In the 2010 fiscal year, the waterpark earned an estimated $458,250 in revenue, of which $303,000 came from admissions and $150,000 from concessions. The waterpark started that year with a $241,395 surplus from 2009.
Muskogee Swim and Fitness Center, which has only been open since 2008, ended the 2009 year with $425,695 in revenue, including a $23,634 surplus from the previous year, $422,847 in expenses. The center earned $286,342 in membership fees. The center ended 2010 with an estimated $404,847 in revenue, including a $2,647 surplus, and $404,572 in expenses. The center earned an estimated $320,000 in membership fees.
Civic centers or conference centers do not put money directly into other city coffers, either.
Debbie Campbell, general manager of Enid’s Cherokee Strip Conference Center said, “Most conference centers are built to attract events to a city, to help fill hotels and restaurants.”
Muskogee Civic Center Director Cassandra Gaines said she markets the civic center and the nearby Roxy Theatre through brochures and by making calls. Competitive rental rates also help.
“We have the lowest rates in the state,” she said.
The civic center charges $550 for nonprofit groups, $650 to for-profit groups to use just the arena floor, plus a $200 deposit. The center charges $1,500 for the entire arena. Smaller conference rooms can be rented for as low as $100, plus deposit.
Gaines said the Civic Center or rooms in the center are rented often. The schedule for calendar year 2010 lists 23 events including several basketball games, a home and garden show, the annual Success Expo, the annual Regional Science Fair and, coming up, the Mayor’s State of the City Address on Oct. 14, and the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame ceremony and concert on Nov. 4.
Willcox said the Shrine Classic will return to the civic Center for its 31st annual tournament, Jan. 3 through 8. The tournament raises money to help transport children to Shrine hospitals. He said the tournament attracts around 12 teams, which also play at Hilldale High School and Muskogee High School gyms. He said teams have come from as far away as Enid and Oklahoma City.
Willcox said recent renovations at the civic center, funded through a 2004 one-quarter cent sales tax, helped make the civic center a more appealing place.
“What might help us in the future is improvements to the dressing rooms and the basketball floor,” he said.
For one weekend in September, the annual Shrine Circus attracts 8,000 to 10,000 people to the civic center, Willcox said. The circus helps raise money for the Muskogee temple’s general expenses, he said.
The Muskogee Chamber of Commerce said the civic center had 81,793 visitors in the calendar year 2009. Gaines said the civic center’s smaller rooms are rented for private functions such as weddings, receptions or conferences.
In that area, several other venues have given the civic center some competition. For example, the River Center offers a a riverside facility with a kitchen, plus two walls of windows and a sunset view. The center generated $12,430 in rental income for last eight months in 2009 and $5,695 in rental income for the first eight months of 2010. The 1,614-square-foot main area, which can be divided into a large and a small meeting room, rents for $440 for a four-hour minimum, plus $110 for each additional hour.
The Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame, located in the historic Frisco Depot, was the site of the Education Foundation of Muskogee’s Trivia Night and is open for weddings, receptions, recitals and receptions. The building has no full kitchen.
“Our biggest crowd was for the ‘Almost Famous’ concert, which attracted 450 people,” said Hall of Fame Director Penny Kampf,
She said the Depot rents for $75 per hour for private events, or $500 a day.
Reach Cathy Spaulding at 684-2928 or cspaulding @muskogeephoenix.com.
