Glendale’s Community Newspaper
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The Glendale Vol. 74 No. 43
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www.glendalestar.com
October 25, 2018
City seeks input on civic center management By DARRELL JACKSON Staff Writer
Nearly 19 years after opening the doors to Glendale Civic Center, city officials are seeking a change in the management of the city-owned building. City Manager Kevin Phelps, who was founder and managing general partner of Landmark Convention Center, Tacoma, Wash., and had great success in business, is looking to extend that with the civic center. “I think the challenge has been knowing, and I am quick to compare my former occupation to this, when I see the contract in revenue and bottom line performance,” Phelps said during a recent sitdown interview. “I have to continue reminding myself our civic center is a whole different set of dynamics than what I had in Tacoma.” The city has a request for proposal, which is seeking the expertise of industry experts, to re-envision or re-invigorate the use of the city- operated civic center. The city is
seeking proposals from any interested party and is open to alternative uses which could include completely new or complementary uses that are compatible with the downtown area and can demonstrate measurable outcomes that advance the city’s resultsdriven objectives. “Currently, the city has overall responsibility for operating and maintenance, marketing and booking and upkeep of the facility,” Phelps said. “We
then have an independent relationship with a contractor for food and beverage services. The challenge for revenue centers on predominately from food and beverage side of the house and the city gets a percentage of that.” Phelps said when he ran convention centers in Washington, a majority of the profits came from food and beverage sales. “The challenge is that 90 percent of income comes from food and bev-
erage sales,” Phelps said. “Here, there is a different catering company, and they do a fine job, but we get a percentage of sales. What I have learned is clients want everything to be seamlees and integrated in how they interact with a facility. We book events, then send them to a different person for food and beverage and then they come back to us, which is not easy on customers.” The RFP is asking for three objectives for the
new manager of the civic center, including, “increase number of annual days; increase number of visitors or trips to downtown; and create positive economic impact through direct sales tax or ancillary economic impact.” Phelps said that includes numerous different possibilities. “We are asking (to) look at the model, show us how you can come in and convince us how if we enter into an agreement with you how those goals and objectives would be met.
Because they are closely tied together, more events means more people, which leads to more revenue and that is what we want with our civic center,” Phelps said. “What we want to know is should we continue on with city staffing and running the civic center versus having the private sector doing it on our behalf. Let’s stay in our lane for what we are good at and get out of things we are not well suited for, which means
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City manager recommends closing Glen Lakes Golf Course By DARRELL JACKSON Staff Writer
Photo by Darrell Jackson
Glendale Civic Center may have a new management company as the city has issued a request for proposal to run the building.
As the public continues to battle to try and save the city owned Glen Lakes Golf Course, prior to the City Council meeting Oct. 23, City Manager Kevin Phelps said he would be recommending to council it begin the process of closing the city owned 52-year-old course. “My recommendation is that we begin the process of closing down the Glen Lakes Golf Course,” City Manager Kevin Phelps said. “My recommendation is that it is not a good use of our funds to allow other park facilities to be stressed by lack of reinvestment and have a pay-to-play nine-hole golf course, when we already have another one less than five miles away that we do not subsidize.”
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Children enjoy checking out a replica of Tow Mater from the Cars movies during the Toucha-Truck event Oct. 20 at Westgate.
Touch-A-Truck a hit for youngsters and adults Thousands of attendees got the chance to touch various commercial and industrial vehicles during the third annual Toucha-Truck event Oct. 20, at the Westgate Entertainment District. Parents and children were able to climb on and review a number of vehicles, including a tow truck, dump truck, commercial bucket loader, sanitation vehicle, backhoe,18-wheeler and Glendale Police Bomb Squad.
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