While I am excited for the opportunity to have an arena built within a few miles driving distance of home, I do have my concerns with using tax dollars for this effort. I understand the long term goals of the project and how revitalizing the city and community could benefit the greater good. I see the plans, the construction, the obstacles being overcome. I see this happening whether us taxpayers and voters like it or not. The big question is… Will it work?
I’ve always felt the best way to estimate the success of a project is to look at past projects and learn from them. See their success, see their failures and avoid mistakes that others have made and learn from both while implementing a recipe for success for my own efforts.
The Lehigh Valley does seem to be putting a lot out there to build this arena. It could prove a very costly disaster or could bring a shining star to the region.
On that note, let’s look at a few examples and do some comparisons.
For this I will use The Sovereign Center in Reading, PA, The Sun National Bank Center in Trenton, NJ and Bank of Oklahoma (BOK) Center in Tulsa, OK. (Nod to Emily for the info)
Demographics. The Who, What, When, Where and How of a region.
Lehigh Valley Population – 821,623 *2010 census
Berks County (Reading) Population – 411,422 *2010 census
Trenton, NJ Population – 84,913 *2010 census
Tulsa, OK Population – 391,906 *2010 census
Granted, Trenton and Tulsa have surrounding areas to draw from and other factors influence the available market. I included this for a starting point.
Let’s start with Reading’s Sovereign Center.
Opened in 2001
7,083 seat capacity
Home to the Reading Royals hockey team and Reading Express indoor football team.
Link to the Sovereign Center’s Wikipedia Entry
While Wikipedia doesn’t always prove to be a fountain of information, Sovereign Center’s page is certainly lacking.
I looked to the Sovereign Center website
First off, it took the page close to 5 minutes to load. If their webmaster is reading… well, I’d look into it.
The Events calendar pulled up blanks. On the left navigation it lists a few Reading Royal’s games and a Demeitri Martin show.
I moved on to a box office listing on another website
Along with the Royals and Demetri Martin I found several Disney on Ice shows, Blake Shelton, Eric Church and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Not a bad lineup. Not a great lineup.
On to the Sun National Bank Center in Trenton, NJ.
Opened in 1999, the arena holds 8,500 people and is host to the Trenton Titans (Hockey), Trenton Steel (Indoor football) and the Philadelphia Passion (Lingerie Football League).
“The arena opened on October 6, 1999 with a World Wrestling Entertainment event. Since then the arena has hosted over 1200 events with over 4,000,000 guests attending and has sold out shows by Bruce Springsteen, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), Shania Twain, Keith Urban, Cher, Elton John, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Britney Spears and Justin Bieber.
The arena held the first and second rounds of the 2006 NCAA Women’s Division I Basketball Tournament The 2000 and 2001 Northeast Conference men’s basketball tournaments were held there as was the 2003 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference men’s basketball tournament. The 2009 edition of the MAAC men’s basketball tournament was scheduled to be played at the arena until administrators at the facility asked MAAC tournament officials to consider an alternate location for the games. The finals of the Trenton Regional in the 2009 NCAA women’s tournament, were held there as well.”
Ok, they’ve hosted some pretty good shows. They’ve got sports, they’ve got the circus, they’ve got big time pro wrestling. I’m thinking they might suffer a bit being so close to Philadelphia and the mass of venues located there.
The Sun Bank Center website
(Loaded in mere seconds… take that Sovereign Center)
The online events calendar is functional and includes the Harlem Globetrotters, a state cheerleading competition (keeping it accessible to locals) and even an appearance by Buddy Valastro – The Cake Boss.
Not bad, really not bad at all.
On to Tulsa’s BOK Arena. 
I have to admit, the inspiration for this post came from our friends in Oklahoma who told us glorious success stories of how this arena helped the Tulsa community.
The BOK Arena Wikipedia entry is enticingly thorough.
It opened in 2008 with a capacity of 19,100.
From the above website:
“The first announced concert was on September 6, 2008 and featured The Eagles. Since its grand opening, the BOK Center has hosted many big-name acts such as Billy Joel and Elton John, Lady Gaga, Kenny Chesney, Bruce Springsteen, AC/DC, Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Celine Dion, Brad Paisley, Dane Cook and Jonas Brothers. The Eagles also scheduled a rare second performance at the BOK Center after their first concert sold out in 35 minutes. In late 2008, BOK Center manager John Bolton was given Venues Today’s “Hall of Headlines” award after a poll of venue managers, owners, operators and bookers determined that Bolton had the highest level of success in booking high-quality performances among international venues in 2008.
On October 13, 2008, the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder played the Houston Rockets in its first preseason game since leaving Seattle for Oklahoma and was the first major sporting event at the BOK Center. As of August 2008, the Thunder was seeking to play preseason games annually in Tulsa, although the number of games had not been determined.
The BOK Center is home to two semi-pro and one professional sports teams. The Tulsa Oilers ice hockey team of the Central Hockey League, the Tulsa Talons Arena Football League team, and beginning in May 2010, the Tulsa Shock of the Women’s National Basketball Association, previously known as the Detroit Shock, which relocated from Detroit following end of the 2009 season, all play their home games at the BOK Center.
In its short existence, the arena has scored two notable opportunities to host men’s college basketball games, the first being in March 2010, as the Conference USA Men’s Basketball Tournament was held there. The BOK Center later hosted second and third round games in the NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship on March 18 and 20, 2011.
The Professional Bull Riders began hosting Built Ford Tough Series events at the BOK Center in 2009, after having previously occupied the Tulsa Convention Center.
The BOK Center will host two more big-name events in September 2011; Katy Perry‘s California Dreams Tour September 17 and Taylor Swift‘s Speak Now World Tour September 21.“
It’s pretty apparent that I’m using Tulsa as my example of success. These folks have got it going on. Look at some of those big name performers!
BOK Arena also boasts 12,000 parking spaces within a 10 minute walk. I’ve been to Reading… I wouldn’t say that is the case there and Allentown may not come close to that either. Granted, the capacity in Tulsa is higher than the other 2 arenas but parking does become a determining factor for those borderline folks who may or may not patronize these arenas.
The BOK Center’s Website
(Also loaded in seconds)
More Globetrotters, Concerts and even a Motocross event.
I will say it again, these folks have got it going on!
Ok, we’ve looked at three arenas in a short time and with limited resources. (My budget for research is $0)
My thoughts on this are simple. Those who have something to be proud of, talk about it. Those who do not see a success, do not. (Check each arena’s Wikipedia entry as an example) Not to say any arena is a failure as it does benefit the community but at what cost? What could have been… what should have happened.
A lot of pressure is being placed on the arena in Allentown to revitalize the city. It appears to have achieved that in Tulsa. It isn’t as clear in Trenton or Reading. Again, it’s nice to have. I would rather have than not have. At what cost is the question.
Tulsa’s Arena – 2005-2008 construction – $196 Million, $200 Million in 2012 dollars
Trenton’s Arena – 1997-1999 construction – $53 Million, $69.9 Million in 2012 dollars
Reading’s Arena – 1999-2001 construction – $25.9 Million, $32.1 Million in 2012 dollars
Doesn’t take a genius to see Tulsa spent more. They are reaping the benefit of it though.
Allentown broke ground on their new arena recently. It will host primarily the Phantoms Hockey team and probably the Lehigh Valley Steelhawks among other events.
Looking for your thoughts on the level of success for the new Allentown Arena – how do you think it will compare to the above arenas?
noisenation.mlblogs.com 
The new arena is a horrible idea.
There was just an aticle in the MC within the last year about how the Sovereign Center in Reading is not really booking much of anything and lots of merchants close to the arena said that whatever bump or boost they thought it would bring never happened.
What would something in Allentown be all that different?
As far as concerts, unless they get an affiliation with LiveNation or someone similar they’ll get nothing as everything in the area will be routed to Hershey, Philly, Mohegan, the new Sands venue, or Steel Stax.
Same with conventions and maybe if they’re lucky they can pick up some high school or college graduations and further put another nail in the coffin of the dump that is Stabler.
The tri-state area is saturated with new and recent venues and to open up another one just for minor league hockey is shortsighted at best for every one except for Phantom’s ownership.
Also to compare Tulsa with Reading or Allentown is silly simply based on the demographics.
It’s Tulsa, what else is there or around it?
Tulsa is not less than a two hour drive from two of the five largest cities in the country either like Allentown is.
Tulsa has it going on because they have no competition and building that arena gives promoters a viable building in a market that had nothing similar before the BOK center.
Between Philly, the Philly burbs, NYC, the NYC burbs in NJ, Hershey, and Mohegan our area is more than covered already in every direction and with every sized venue that is needed twice over.
Adding another one is just duplicity.
All great points. Needless to say, I was hard pressed to find a successful arena project in recent times.
My older brother tried to warn me, as I tried to warn you. But I definitely learned alot from doing my own research, as I am sure you have now, too, old friend. I walked away a firm believer that the Government just should NOT be in the risky business of financing sports stadiums … this is just simply NOT what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote The Constitution.
They left out our biggest concert of all: Paul McCartney. Our distance from other cities helped, but keep in mind that until we built the BOk Center, *everything* went to OKC ( 90 min. away) or Dallas (5 hrs., but out here, people are used to traveling farther). The arena definitely helped drive downtown development, but two other factors helped tremendously: 1.) OneOK Field, which went up a couple of years ago, and 2.) a phalanx of visionary entrepreneurs willing to invest in downtown. Today, if you’re bored in Tulsa, it’s entirely your own fault. The arena couldn’t have done it alone, but as part of a larger movement to revitalize downtown, it definitely helped speed things up and has pretty much silenced its critics.
The restoration of a historic luxury hotel a few blocks away, the proliferation of restaurants within walking distance, a sudden burst of common sense concerning hours (i.e., staying open in the evenings instead of rolling up the sidewalks at 5 p.m.), and smart marketing by multiple stakeholders (e.g., faux-Mexican hipster restaurant running taco specials the same night the coffeehouse across the street runs gelato specials, with lots of joint advertising; race organizers revising Tulsa Run and Route 66 Marathon courses to go past arena and ballpark; and major emphasis on promoting Tulsa’s history and character while embracing the rapidly growing “shop local” movement) all contributed to its success. I think the local emphasis is huge — chains are conspicuously absent from downtown, and nobody misses them. Coming to downtown Tulsa is a unique experience because of all the indie businesses.
The arena is just one piece of a larger, ongoing effort to promote downtown. I don’t know that it would work everywhere, but here, we found the right mix of private and public investment, and it’s paid big dividends. Our recent histories are fairly similar, too: Working-class boom towns that went bust in the ’80s and have had to get creative since our major economic engines (our oil, your steel) vaporized. Allentown has a lot of cool stuff. Promote it, get the little guys working together, and see what happens. If you do get an arena, it’ll increase its chances for success, and if you don’t, your community will still be healthier and livelier.
Mix of private investment, etc. Ha! Chairman Pawlowski’s $ 160 million dollar Palace of Sport project is all at taxpayer expense.
I just wanted to comment because I thought your comments about the Sovereign Center in Reading were a bit lacking compared to your remarks about the other facilities. There certainly have been more events than simply the Reading Royals, however, they are the star performers at the arena. The arena is home to the Reading Express arena football and professional lacrosse. (the minor league basketball team folded 2 years ago however). Headline performers Elton John, Barry Manilow, Cher, as well as non singing events such as the Champions on Ice, NBC televised competitive figure skating, HBO boxing, Cirque Du Soleil, as well as this group of stars — Slayer, Rob Zombie, Neil Diamond, Friday/Saturday Night Fights, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Godsmack, Blue Man Group, Kenny Chesney, Matchbox Twenty, American Idols LIVE Tour, WWE, Champions on Ice, Rod Stewart, Sting, Kid Rock, multiple Disney on Ice shows, Andre Rieu, Evanescence, Eric Church, Cradle of Filth Bill Cosby, Steve Miller Band, Kid Rock, Straight No Chaser, Elton John, Dolly Parton, Carrie Underwood, Jerry Seinfeld, and Van Halen, Three Days Grace, Stone Sour, Breaking Benjamin, New Medicine, Suicide Silence, Flyleaf (band), Hollywood Undead, Asking Alexandria, Exodus (band), Disturbed (band), Chimaira, Lacuna Coil, Killswitch Engage, Godsmack, Papa Roach, We Came As Romans, Staind, Seether, P.O.D, Red (band), All That Remains (band)