Tullio Arena to become Erie Insurance Arena - Erie Times-News
Erie's downtown entertainment and sports venue has a new name to go with its $42 million makeover.
Erie Insurance Group and the Erie County Convention Center Authority on Wednesday announced a $3 million, 10-year deal to rename Tullio Arena after the locally-based Fortune 500 company. The facility will be known as Erie Insurance Arena.
The naming rights deal -- in the works for several months -- also provides the authority with much-needed cash to restore several amenities cut from the renovation project because of budget constraints, including luxury suites, new ice and ice-making equipment for hockey and a state-of-the-art video scoreboard expected to cost at least $1 million.
"I am now fully confident that we will have a first-class facility" when the revamped arena is finished in the fall of 2013, said Erie lawyer Roger Richards, who leads the Convention Center Authority's Strategic Planning Committee.
Richards and Casey Wells, the Convention Center Authority's executive director, said the $3 million will be paid to the authority over 10 years, and will be used to repay a bank loan the authority will apply for to pay for the suites, ice-related equipment and scoreboard.
Thomas Hagen, chairman of the board at Erie Insurance, and Terrence Cavanaugh, the company's chief executive, acknowledged that the company benefits as well.
"What it does is help tie us to and help improve the community in which we are headquartered," Hagen said.
Cavanaugh said he's confident the naming rights agreement is a good investment for the company.
"Branding and marketing does work over time," he said. "It's like all advertising. It's an opportunity to allow us to present the brand and put it in a good light."
And in this case, he said, the company's investment in the project will allow the arena to be developed as originally envisioned. And a better arena should mean more successful sporting and entertainment events. Ultimately, he said, that should make Erie a more attractive place to live.
"If Erie is more attractive, we attract better talent," he said.
A direct return to shareholders is only part of the equation, Hagen said.
"We have not only shareholders, but policy holders and employees who will benefit from this," he said.
While the company has become more aggressive in its marketing efforts, launching a recent wave of radio advertising, Erie Insurance remains comparatively cautious.
"We spend money prudently," Cavanaugh said.
By way of comparison, Farmers Insurance signed off earlier this year on the most expensive naming rights agreement ever -- $700 million for a proposed football stadium in Los Angeles. Cavanaugh said he's not ready for the company to invest that kind of money.
"Maybe when we move out to LA," he joked.
Wednesday's announcement, coupled with a recent announcement that the company plans to build a 1,000-space parking garage, seems to suggest Erie's third-largest employer isn't going anywhere.
Renovations at the arena, which opened in June 1983, began in December. The facility had carried the name of longtime Erie Mayor Louis J. Tullio, who lobbied hard for the venue to be built.
Officials now plan to call the renovated plaza outside the arena Tullio Plaza.
"Erie Insurance Arena. Has a nice ring to it," said June Pintea, the late mayor's daughter, at a Wednesday afternoon news conference where the naming rights agreement was announced.
Pintea said she counts Convention Center Authority Board members Sue Sutto and Marlene Mosco as personal friends. Sutto, Mosco and Wells took Pintea to lunch several months ago to float the idea of a name change; Pintea said she told them the family would have no problem with that.
Erie Insurance's support, Pintea said, ensures that the arena "will remain a vital hub in my father's beloved city."
Pintea said Tullio always envisioned the arena as a catalyst for transforming downtown Erie into an entertainment and cultural center.
Sutto said the authority wanted the Tullio family's blessing before agreeing to any naming rights deal.
"The respect for the Tullio family was pre-eminent in everything that was done," Sutto said, adding that Pintea "was excited about it ... and everything else just fell into place."
Hagen gave credit to Tullio, Erie's longest-serving mayor, for building the arena and for helping Erie Insurance secure the land for the four-story F.W. Hirt Perry Square Building, which opened in 1983.
State government is providing $32 million for the arena renovations, which will create a multiuse entertainment complex, expand and improve interior space and create a parklike atmosphere.
An additional $10 million comes from Erie County government through gambling revenue from Presque Isle Downs & Casino.
Work on the project began Dec. 13, with demolition of the elevated walkway on the south side of the arena. Site preparation and foundation work is expected to start soon.
The Tullio Arena work was significantly delayed after two rounds of higher-than-expected construction bids. As a result of the higher bids, a fully renovated Erie Insurance Arena is now expected to open in the fall of 2013, or about a year later than first planned.
After the latest round of bids, opened in August, bidders voluntarily agreed to reduce their bids, cutting project costs to fit within the project's construction budget of about $35 million.
Those adjustments eliminated money for the suites and other amenities, but the naming rights deal will allow the authority to restore them to the project, Richards said. He estimated the suites, for example, would cost about $1.2 million.
Richards added that the project was designed, with bidders' OK, to restore those amenities if the Convention Center Authority could come up with a way to fund them.
Wells said the Erie Insurance commitment "was a crucial piece of the puzzle. We would have had a 30-year-old ice floor in a new building, and no third-level suites. That makes no sense."
Richards said he approached three local companies, including Erie Insurance, about naming rights as a way to generate revenue for the project and "close our funding gap."
Two of the companies, whom Richards would not name, turned him down.
"I went to corporate citizens locally who I thought could support something like this," Richards said. "Erie Insurance agreed to make the commitment."
KEVIN FLOWERS can be reached at 870-1693 or by e-mail. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNflowers.
JIM MARTIN can be reached at 870-1668 or jim.martin@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNmartin.
10 May, 2012
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Source: http://www.goerie.com/article/20120510/NEWS02/305099873/Tullio-Arena-to-become-Erie-Insurance-Arena
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