For a while, we've been talking about a new James Brown Arena, but how will it happen? Where will the money come from? What will a new arena mean for the CSRA? Thankfully we were able to answer the questions. We were able to talk with Brad Usry from the Coliseum Authority this morning, and he gave us some great information about a possible new James Brown Arena.
Check out our full conversation with Brad about the new James Brown Arena, and the current renovations going on at The Bell Auditorium.
Transcription:
Dub [00:00:00] Kicks 99, it's your Wake Up Krew, Dub and Cody. You know, we were just talking a few minutes ago about how cool a new arena would be.
Cody [00:00:08] Oh, absolutely. We love what we have here in Augusta. Don't get us wrong.
Dub [00:00:12] That's right.
Cody [00:00:13] But there's a way we could take this to the next level.
Dub [00:00:15] Well, and the thing is, both of our entertainment venues. The Bell Auditorium opened up in 1940. It's been. It's been renovated a few times and looks great. Our James Brown Arena opened in the late seventies. And, you know, it's still kickin', but we could really in order to take entertainment to the next level here in the CSRA, we got to make some changes and we got a guy who knows way more about everything going on than what we do. Our buddy Brad Usry on the line with us. Good morning, Brad. Thanks for taking some time and talking with us this morning.
Brad Usry [00:00:44] Good morning. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.
Dub [00:00:46] Yeah. So, first of all, let's talk about actually last weekend I was riding downtown and I passed in front of the JBA and The Bell, and I noticed, man, there's some big time stuff going on at The Bell Auditorium. It's currently closed right now. So let's talk about all the changes and stuff that are happening with The Bell and what we can expect here in the next few months, because The Bell will be back open in less than a year.
Brad Usry [00:01:08] Absolutely. And these changes are epic. I mean, it's really cool and it's much needed. But, you know, the finished product will also give the community a perspective of what they can expect with a new arena, because this is just what we're calling this is phase one of the big project, because once this is done, the new arena will connect to this construction. So it will be one building. It's going to be a true complex, not two buildings. And so this renovation, we're going to create a grand lobby. It's going to give us more concession spaces. It's going to give a place... if you've ever been in The Bell when you come in, the front door is just a big show. A good country show is just packed. You can't even move.
Dub [00:01:50] Yeah.
Brad Usry [00:01:51] And then the bars are right there when you walk in, this will create an area you can congregate. We create more concessions. And the greatest thing about all this is we get to add bathrooms. You know, The Bell only has bathrooms for men on one side and ladies on one side. So now we're going to have ladies and men's on both sides. And also anybody that's been in the premium space at The Bell, the BMW Club is going to double in size. It was pretty much a closet before. So now we're going to a true premium space that you actually will be able to see the show going on from the space. And we're also going to add a second premium space that will, for lack of a better term, we're going to call a speakeasy. It's going to be kind of tucked away that's secret.
Dub [00:02:34] Oh, you gotta have a password to get in there?
Brad Usry [00:02:37] You know what? I don't think I've been invited yet.
Cody [00:02:42] Well, once you know, can you invite us?
Dub [00:02:44] Yeah, because listen, I love the idea of knocking on a door, and some little fella opens up a slot and goes, "Password," and I've got to give a password in order to get a beer. I'm totally down for that.
Brad Usry [00:02:52] Well, you guys will probably get in before me, so I'm gonna be ridin' ya'lls coattails.
Dub [00:02:56] That's fine. I'll hold the door open for you, Brad.
Brad Usry [00:02:58] But anyway, just to kind of put a bow on this little bit, it is exciting. You know, we're going vertical with it. You know, our construction manager is doing a super job. We're on time right now. We're on budget. The staff at the JBA, the management company overview, they are taking shows that would be at The Bell right now while we're dark. They're moving them over to the JBA as much as they can. We have a curtain system in the JBA now that still allows them to make it more intimate so we can have the smaller shows. And so, yeah, it's, it's just, it's exciting what's going on at The Bell and you know, how it can show the community what's going to happen. You know, once we get this approval in November and we break ground on the new arena, you know, hopefully next spring and, you know, it will be about a 30 month process to get the new arena built. But it's going to be worth the wait.
Dub [00:03:50] For sure. And let's talk about that. I'm glad you brought that up about the ballot in November, because, you know, the voters, the taxpayers here, they had the chance to vote on this. And let's talk about this SPLOST and what that's going to mean for the company or for the, you know, the CRSA. How are we going to be able to fund a new arena? Because they don't just happen. Money has to come from somewhere. So let's kind of talk about what everybody needs to do in November.
Brad Usry [00:04:15] So, the project is 250 million and it's going to be a half penny sales tax. And that half penny is dedicated to this project and this project alone. And when this project is paid off, this debt is paid off, this tax is going away. And that is written into Georgia law by the state legislature with this C-SPLOST. So, you know, people always say the tax just keeps on going. That's just another excuse to keep another tax. This tax actually has written in law. It's got to disappear. So that's one thing. And what I like to tell people, the greatest thing, because 40% of this tax is paid for by people outside of Richmond County. And it's also a reflection on sort of the usage of the arena. Like, you know, Aiken County and Columbia County, Burke County, McDuffie County. So this is kind of, again, a reflection of the people that actually use arenas. So everybody's going to be using is going to be paying for that. Then that makes it fair.
Dub [00:05:13] It does. And I think that that was, you know, one of the hold-ups before is the burden fell on the citizens of Richmond County. And it's like, well, you know, I live in Columbia County and Cody lives over in Aiken County. We're going to just as many shows as the folks in Richmond County do. So we should you know, we should chip in our fair share.
Cody [00:05:31] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that makes total sense.
Brad Usry [00:05:35] Other things beyond that, too. You know, this is going to create 600 jobs. Yeah. Almost over a thousand construction jobs for 30 months. This is going to increase spending by $1.5 billion over 30 years in direct and indirect spending. You know, a lot of this stuff's over my head because I flip hamburgers for a living. But I can tell you, those are all good things. And, you know, so but we just right now, we've got to educate the public. And I appreciate you guys having me on to let people know what this can do for the community. And the amenities it's going to add for the community to use. You know, when you go to the JBA, it was built in 1979. It's functionally obsolete. We can't even hold some of the shows that are touring now. I mean, the way that the shows that would hang from the rafters, we can't even have them. I mean, your listeners, they know Carrie Underwood, right? I mean, they'd love for her to come. We had her coming, I guess it's been a couple of years ago. We could not hold her show. We could not. The weight of her show is too much. They wanted to route through Augusta. We couldn't bring her in. So that's you know that's something that's important to us that people don't even know about. It's just the shows we can take on, our sound system and our lighting. It's just not up to speed right now. So we're going to be all state of the art with this which is going to attract artists to come to Augusta and you know, we're going to have 12 premium boxes. We have no premium spaces at the JBA now. We're going to sit 10,000 people. You know, people always thought the JBA was like 8,000 seats. Well, really the biggest event we have is the Guitar Pull.
Dub [00:07:15] That's right.
Brad Usry [00:07:17] I think the maximum amount of seats we can sell for that thing and we got people sitting behind the stage at the Guitar Pull is like 6500.
Dub [00:07:25] That sounds right. Yeah.
Brad Usry [00:07:27] Okay, so this is almost double and these 10,000 seats are usable seats for an in-stage concert. Okay? So they're not seats that you can't use when you have a bigger act. There's 10,000 seats we can sell, tickets we can sell to the public. And again, because we have 10,000 seats, we have all these premium levels, there's different price points for people and the people that, you know, can't afford an expensive ticket. This divides the artist fee up a lot more when you put 10,000 people in it. So you have a cheaper ticket.
Dub [00:07:58] Yeah. And it's like we've said, you know that's the thing that the people don't get is, an artist booking fee doesn't change based on the size of the venue that they play. And so when you take the booking fee of the artist and you divide it up by how many seats you can sell, that's basically what, you know, is the price of the ticket. And when you say there's more seats that you can sell, that means you can make the ticket cheaper. So if you want to go big and buy the VIP tickets and packages, you can do that if you want to be a little bit more cost-effective and say, "This is what I can afford, but I still want to go to the show," that's an option and I love that. And by comparison, Savannah just built a new state-of-the-art arena that's going to be smaller than what the new proposed James Brown Arena would be. And they're getting some of the biggest names in entertainment down in Savannah, just 2 hours down the road. We could have that right here in the CSRA. Right.
Cody [00:08:44] And you have people that complain all the time like, "Oh, we need this artist to come through. We need this artist. But I mean, we don't really have that space right now. And so, I mean, times are changing. We've got to adapt and grow with the need of the community. And I mean, I think everybody enjoys, you know, going to shows and this just opens up more opportunities.
Dub [00:09:02] One hundred percent.
Brad Usry [00:09:02] You know, I'm glad you brought up Savannah because there are absolutely tonning it in Savannah. And you know, what's beautiful about Savannah is our management team, OVG360 also manages that building. So this is also beneficial to us as a community. So the routing, you know, we can route shows and piggyback off shows. They're bringing, heck, they opened with the Eagles.
Dub [00:09:23] Oh, I know, I've seen Bon Jovi, Jason Aldean, Alan Jackson, Jimmy Buffett. I mean that's what I'm saying. The top names in the entertainment business are 2 hours down the road and with a brand-new facility, we could have those same artists right here.
Brad Usry [00:09:36] When you go to the JBA, you go to a show. I mean, you go in if you want something, you get popcorn and peanuts and, you know, and pizza. All right. When you go to show at this new arena, you go experience it, you'll go an hour early, an hour and a half early. You can have dinner in this arena, you know, and you can hang out when you're on the concourse of the JBA now, you can't see the show. You're isolated from the show completely. So you're standing in a line for a beer, you can't see the show. This new arena, the way they design these things now you can be standing at a bar in the new arena and be looking at Jason Aldean or somebody playing on the stage because it's open. That's another cool part, a good amenity that people just don't realize we don't have. So anyway, it's just it's exciting. We got to educate the public. It's our job as the Coliseum Authority right now to get out as many people as we can just like this right now, we appreciate you so much having us all to get the word out. And, you know, people have got questions. You know, if they do, we want to answer them. If we don't have the answer, we'll find the answer.
Dub [00:10:38] That's right. And it all comes down to what happens in November. If our friends out there in Kicks Country want this new arena and you're like, hey, I'm all in on this, just like Cody and I are all in on this and all of us here, then we got to get this thing passed in November and hopefully, like you said, Brad, then get ground broken in spring of next year.
Brad Usry [00:10:56] You know, again, this is the fairest way. We all share this whole community, this whole region, you know, shares the costs. 40% is going to be paid by the people outside Richmond County, so voters in Richmond County can feel comfortable voting in November. Again, it's up to us right now to just educate people because people can make their own decisions. But, you know, we just need to educate them.
Cody [00:11:17] They need to see the vision.
Dub [00:11:18] That's right. 100%. And Brad, we appreciate you taking the time out and kind of letting everybody know, kind of giving, showing them the bigger picture and letting people know what is going to be on the, you know, what could be on the horizon here in the CSRA if this thing gets passed in November. So we just wanted to thank you for taking some time. And, you know, we're happy to have you and help educate everybody out there in Kicks Country.
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