DID RICHMOND EVER REALLY TEST THE CASE FOR RENOVATING THE COLISEUM?
A closer look at the RFP process, the renovation option, and the lesson Baltimore may have provided
For years, Richmond's debate over the Richmond Coliseum has largely been framed around two choices: replace the aging arena or demolish it and redevelop the property.
But there is a third question that deserves considerably more attention:
Did Richmond ever conduct a truly competitive process specifically designed to determine what it would cost to renovate and modernize the existing Coliseum?
The record suggests the answer is more complicated than many Richmonders may realize.
Richmond did issue a major Request for Proposals in 2017 that technically allowed rehabilitation of the Coliseum. But that RFP was not principally a Coliseum-renovation study. It was a massive downtown redevelopment solicitation encompassing roughly 10 blocks and requiring developers to address an arena, housing, a convention hotel, transportation, infrastructure, the Blues Armory and other development objectives.
And despite officials initially saying they hoped the market would be creative, Richmond received only one proposal.
That distinction matters.
Because approximately five years later, Baltimore demonstrated something Richmond never fully tested: whether an aging downtown arena could be transformed through major private investment rather than demolished.
The result in Baltimore is difficult to ignore.
THE 2017 RFP
On November 9, 2017, Richmond issued the North of Broad/Downtown Neighborhood Redevelopment Project RFP.
The solicitation covered far more than the Coliseum.
Among other things, respondents were expected to address an arena, mixed-income and affordable housing, economic development, infrastructure, job creation, minority-business participation, a replacement transit facility, a convention-center hotel and preservation of the historic Blues Armory.
The Coliseum language is particularly important.
Contemporary reporting described the requirement this way: proposals had to include either "demolition and replacement, or rehabilitation" of the existing Richmond Coliseum as an entertainment venue.
In other words:
Renovation was legally on the table.
But there is a major difference between allowing renovation and structuring an RFP specifically to investigate renovation.
Richmond did the former.
There is little evidence that it did the latter.
THE RFP WAS REALLY ABOUT MUCH MORE THAN AN ARENA
The scope of the solicitation helps explain the problem.
A company interested primarily in acquiring, renovating and operating an arena could not simply submit a proposal saying:
Here is what is structurally necessary. Here is our renovation budget. Here is our financing. Here are the improvements. Here is the projected event schedule. Here is what we will pay the City. Here is the economic impact.
Instead, the prospective developer confronted an enormous downtown redevelopment undertaking.
The City's evaluation criteria included the financial capacity of the development team, experience with projects of comparable scale and complexity, net economic benefit to Richmond and whether the overall proposal was in the City's best interest.
Those are reasonable criteria for a billion-dollar neighborhood redevelopment.
But they are not the same thing as asking arena specialists a much narrower question:
Can this building be economically renovated?
That question arguably deserved its own process.
ONLY ONE PROPOSAL ARRIVED
The clearest warning sign may be the number of responses.
When the February 9, 2018 deadline arrived, Richmond had received exactly one proposal.
That proposal came from the group that ultimately became associated with the Navy Hill project.
Instead of producing competing approaches to the Coliseum, therefore, the process effectively left Richmond evaluating a single redevelopment vision.
The City's original plan called for a review committee drawn from multiple disciplines, followed potentially by preliminary discussions, negotiations and eventual City Council consideration.
The lone proposal eventually evolved into the roughly $1.5 billion Navy Hill redevelopment proposal centered around construction of a new 17,500-seat arena.
The renovation alternative essentially disappeared from the center of the discussion.
And that is where questions about the procurement process become significant.
CITY COUNCIL LATER QUESTIONED THE PROCESS
These concerns are not merely hindsight.
In 2020, Richmond City Council considered a resolution asking the administration to withdraw the Navy Hill ordinances and conduct a new RFP process.
The resolution contained several striking findings.
Council noted that developers had been given approximately 92 days to respond to an extraordinarily large and complicated redevelopment solicitation.
It stated that this period "may have been too short for development of alternative proposals for such a large and complex project."
Even more importantly, Council noted that the RFP required demolition and replacement or rehabilitation of the Coliseum even though Council itself had not previously taken an official position requesting either course.
Council also suggested that the Coliseum requirements may have limited the number and variety of proposals received.
That is a remarkable point.
Richmond's own legislative body was essentially questioning whether the procurement process had been structured in a way that discouraged alternative ideas.
WHAT A TRUE COLISEUM RENOVATION RFP COULD HAVE LOOKED LIKE
Imagine a different process.
Instead of bundling the arena into an enormous neighborhood redevelopment, Richmond could have issued a separate solicitation to arena developers, operators, architects and investment groups.
The City could have requested proposals for:
Full renovation of the existing Coliseum.
Partial renovation and modernization.
Expansion where structurally feasible.
Private operation of the arena.
Public-private financing.
Private financing in exchange for a long-term lease.
Naming-rights revenue.
Premium seating, suites and club areas.
Improved acoustics and concert-production infrastructure.
Restaurant, retail and entertainment development around the building.
Most importantly, every bidder could have been required to provide a detailed cost estimate and operating model.
Richmond could then have compared:
Renovation vs. replacement vs. demolition.
That would have created something Richmond still lacks today: a clean, apples-to-apples public record showing the financial consequences of each option.
THEN CAME ANOTHER RENOVATION PROPOSAL
The renovation issue did not completely disappear.
After City Council rejected Navy Hill in 2020, Washington-based Douglas Development Corporation submitted an unsolicited offer to acquire roughly 15 acres of the Navy Hill property for $15 million.
Its proposal was dramatically different.
Douglas proposed keeping and renovating the Richmond Coliseum.
According to Richmond BizSense, Douglas said its goal was to retain the structure, modernize it and preserve its historic integrity. Even more notable was the financing concept: Douglas said the renovation would involve no TIF, City bonds or new taxes and would be undertaken at zero cost to the City.
The proposal was incomplete in several important respects. City administrators noted that it lacked information including projected investment, tax revenue, job creation and certain other details required of the Navy Hill proposal.
That means Douglas's offer should not be presented as proof that the Coliseum definitely could have been successfully renovated.
But it proves something else:
There was private-sector interest in attempting it.
And that should have raised an obvious question.
Why not issue a focused competitive RFP and see whether Douglas or other arena developers were prepared to put detailed numbers behind the concept?
THE BALTIMORE COMPARISON
That question became much more interesting after Baltimore.
Baltimore faced its own aging downtown arena, originally opened in 1962.
Instead of tearing it down, the city partnered with Oak View Group on a massive renovation.
Today it is the CFG Bank Arena.
The renovation ultimately represented more than $250 million in private investment. According to the arena and project sources, the project was privately financed rather than funded by Baltimore taxpayers.
The old arena wasn't merely given fresh paint.
The project modernized seating, suites, club spaces, acoustics, concourses, food-and-beverage operations and other components necessary to compete for modern entertainment events.
The building reopened in April 2023.
And the economic numbers have become increasingly compelling.
BALTIMORE'S RESULTS
Baltimore Development Corporation reports that the renovation produced:
More than $250 million in private investment
More than 500 construction jobs
More than 60 permanent operating jobs
More than 120 shows annually
Approximately $3.5 million in annual sales and amusement taxes
The same Baltimore presentation says 37% of construction subcontracts went to local and/or minority-owned companies.
And the arena's performance has continued to grow.
Baltimore's Fiscal Year 2026 budget documents report that CFG Bank Arena hosted 172 live performances during calendar year 2024 and attracted approximately 1.5 million visitors.
That is precisely the kind of activity Richmond lost when the Coliseum stopped operating.
Arena visitors do not simply purchase tickets.
They park.
They eat.
They drink.
They stay in hotels.
They use transportation.
They spend money before and after events.
And businesses surrounding the arena capture part of that spending.
Baltimore's renovated arena has even strengthened the city's competitive position for major touring acts. Reporting in 2024 noted that performers including Billie Eilish and Pearl Jam were choosing Baltimore while bypassing Washington for certain tour dates.
Baltimore turned an aging arena into an economic-development asset.
Richmond turned its aging arena dark.
ONE EVENT SHOWS THE RIPPLE EFFECT
Consider the CIAA basketball tournament.
A Baltimore Development Corporation report estimated that the 2023 tournament drew more than 38,400 fans over five days and generated approximately $29.6 million in economic impact.
The report also said 118 minority-owned businesses participated in tournament preparations and logistics, producing more than $1.2 million in direct economic benefit for those businesses.
That doesn't mean every arena event generates anything close to $29.6 million.
It doesn't.
But it demonstrates the broader point.
The economic value of an arena cannot be measured solely by the arena's own operating profit.
Its economic footprint extends into hotels, restaurants, parking, transportation, tourism and surrounding development.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFIT IS WORTH NOTING TOO
Baltimore found another benefit from renovation.
CFG Bank Arena reports that preserving and renovating the existing building resulted in approximately a 95% reduction in embodied carbon compared with constructing an entirely new facility, while avoiding more than 50,000 tons of structural demolition waste.
That provides yet another category Richmond could have evaluated:
What is the environmental and financial value of reusing an enormous structure that already exists?
Demolition is not free.
Neither is rebuilding.
BALTIMORE DOES NOT PROVE RICHMOND COULD HAVE DONE THE SAME THING
There is an important caveat.
Baltimore and Richmond are different markets.
Their arenas are different buildings.
Baltimore sits within a much larger metropolitan market and benefits from its location between Washington and Philadelphia.
A $250 million renovation of the Richmond Coliseum might not have produced Baltimore's attendance, event schedule or financial results.
It is entirely possible that a comprehensive engineering and financial analysis would have concluded that renovating Richmond's Coliseum wasn't economically practical.
But that is precisely the point.
Where is that analysis?
Where was the competitive process in which multiple experienced arena operators and developers were asked specifically to determine what could be done with the existing building?
Where were the competing renovation prices?
Where was the comparison of a $75 million renovation against a $125 million renovation, a $200 million modernization or a new arena?
Where was the analysis of private financing?
Where was the examination of a long-term lease comparable in concept to Baltimore?
Where was the projected event calendar?
Where was the economic-impact study comparing a renovated Coliseum with demolition?
Those are the questions a renovation-focused RFP could have answered.
THE REAL PROBLEM WITH RICHMOND'S RFP
The criticism should therefore be precise.
It would be inaccurate to claim Richmond never considered renovation at all.
The 2017 RFP explicitly permitted rehabilitation.
But it is equally misleading to suggest that Richmond conducted an exhaustive competitive examination of renovation simply because the word "rehabilitation" appeared in the solicitation.
The RFP bundled the Coliseum into an enormous redevelopment project.
It received one response.
That response ultimately centered on replacing the Coliseum.
City Council later questioned whether the 92-day solicitation period and structure of the RFP limited alternative proposals.
Then, after Navy Hill failed, a private developer appeared with an unsolicited proposal specifically offering to preserve and renovate the Coliseum without the public financing structure contemplated for the new Navy Hill arena.
And a few years later, Baltimore demonstrated that a privately financed renovation of an aging downtown arena could produce substantial economic activity.
Put together, those facts create a legitimate public-policy question.
RICHMOND MAY HAVE ASKED THE WRONG QUESTION
For much of the debate, Richmond seemed consumed with:
How do we replace the Coliseum?
Perhaps the first question should have been:
What would it take to save it?
Not because renovation was necessarily the correct answer.
Not because every old building deserves preservation.
And not because Baltimore proves Richmond would have achieved identical results.
But because a city should understand the value of an asset before permanently disposing of it.
The Richmond Coliseum represents millions of dollars of previous public investment, a downtown entertainment location adjacent to the convention center and decades of civic history.
Before demolition becomes irreversible, Richmond citizens deserve something remarkably simple:
The numbers.
Issue a renovation-focused RFP.
Invite arena operators, developers, preservation specialists and private investors.
Give them access to the building.
Require structural assessments.
Require detailed renovation budgets.
Require financing plans.
Require projected event calendars.
Require operating projections.
Require estimates of hotel, restaurant, admissions, sales and other tax revenue.
Then compare those proposals with demolition and redevelopment.
Baltimore has already shown that "old arena" and "obsolete arena" do not necessarily mean the same thing.
The question for Richmond isn't whether Baltimore's solution can simply be copied.
The question is whether Richmond ever performed the competitive process necessary to determine whether its own Coliseum could have experienced a similar second life.
Based on the public record surrounding the 2017 RFP, the case that Richmond fully exhausted the renovation option is difficult to make.
And before the wrecking ball settles that question permanently, perhaps Richmond should finally conduct the process that could answer it.
Brian K. Telfair
Publisher & Editor | The Richmond Chronicle
Independent commentary and investigative analysis on Richmond government, public spending, economic development, and the decisions shaping the city’s future.
The Richmond Chronicle
Asking the questions City Hall would rather not answer.
A good piece and spot on. It's another example of how badly managed Richmond is. And it is very badly managed.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely hitting the nail on the head
ReplyDelete