Matt Brown's excellent adventure
This week's column.
What Matt Brown wanted, he finally got Tuesday night.
The planned Greensboro swim center will be built at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex, which Brown directs.
Next door to it will be the ACC Hall of Champions project. The first phase of the hall will be built in the west wing of the coliseum’s Special Events Center.
The City Council authorized the freeing of $2 million in state funds to finance an exhibit area and a 200-seat theater.
Brown hailed these developments with characteristic understatement.
“I think these decisions made on Tuesday were highly significant and even historic,” he said.
But Brown is right. These initiatives are a big deal.
Not that I haven’t had big reservations, all the same.
In particular, I was never a big fan of the $12 million swim center as a publicly financed project. I’m still not. It is a want, not a need, and it will incur considerable operating expenses beyond the construction.
It also was a fluke at the polls, passing in a 2008 referendum only because it was folded into Parks and Recreation bonds that provided safe cover from voter skepticism.
To add a few more sour grapes to my whine, it would have been nice to see at least one of these attractions go downtown. But now that I’ve gotten these concerns off my chest, I need to get over them.
A consultant’s study advised against the ACC hall being built in the center city. And Brown makes a compelling case that the 44,000-square-foot swim center can be operated less expensively on the coliseum grounds, using coliseum staff and some of the complex’s existing facilities.
“I don’t think I’ll need to hire more than two full-time employees,” he said.
Brown then ticked off some other ways his master plan for the two facilities would save money:
-- The generous use of glass for both facilities’ facades would cut construction and energy costs.
-- Locating the buildings so close to one another would allow the use of Special Events Center space in conjunction with swim events.
-- The use of an infrared filtration system, rather than chlorine, would pay for itself “in seven to eight years.”
The swim center also should be a community asset that attracts visitors and boosts the economy.
Greensboro’s passionate and very active swim community finally will have access to a first-class facility.
And if the city holds true to its promise, the facility should be made accessible to citizens outside of competitive swim circles.
Brown insisted it will. That’s why he said he hopes to be able to provide three pools in the facility: a diving pool, a 50-meter competitive pool, and a warm-up pool that could be used for swim instruction and therapy.
That’s not all, he said. The new facility will free other community pools for more instructional and recreational use. He said he was especially interested in creating more access for the African American community, where children are 44 percent more likely to die from drowning, he said.
At this point, I could hear him pounding his desk over the phone, like a Baptist preacher hammering home a fiery sermon.
In the process, he may have converted a new believer.
If the aquatics center can help expand swimming instruction to more children, Amen to that.
And if it can uncover talent from untapped sources, hallejulah.
Seeing both attractions go to the coliseum still disappoints.
As UNCG economist Andrew Brod noted in a blog comment: “We say that we care about rebuilding a downtown community in Greensboro, but when push comes to shove, the new stuff often goes elsewhere. Over the years, we allowed important assets to be built outside of downtown, and as a result this cost argument will always work in favor of centripetal rather than center-city development. Downtown Greensboro’s promise is still unfulfilled, and I fear that it will always be so if this is what passes for our urban vision.”
But it all may have been inevitable.
Brown conceived the Hall of Champions idea several years ago as part of a pitch to bring the ACC Tournament to Greensboro. And, to be honest, he has been a stronger advocate for the coliseum location than anyone else has been for downtown.
In fact, Brown has had a clearer, more passionate vision for the coliseum from the start than city leaders have had for downtown.
So, even if they weren’t paying close attention, the voters have spoken. My quibbles with how these projects came to be should pale in comparison to what they can accomplish, if they’re done right.
Now I’m pulling hard for both.
Comments (2)
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This will be a money maker if the coliseum charges standard parking fees.
Posted on May 10, 2009 9:09 AM
Not bad for a state that's broke!
My guess is a life time burden on the taxpayers of this state.
And for Allen Brod information I am still Doug Johnson.
Posted on May 12, 2009 3:43 AM