A game-winning slapshot sends a sold-out crowd into a frenzy. A dramatic performance captures an audience at the theater. A band’s rocking encore leaves fans wanting more.
Building new indoor venues to facilitate these types of events has been on the minds of visionaries in Bend for years, especially as the City’s growth has exploded. Now, a new effort exploring a multi-use indoor venue has public backing from the City and its tourism agency, Visit Bend. Key details like where it would go, how much it would cost and which types of events it could host are still unclear. Last week, the Bend City Council gave the nod to start pursuing those questions after hearing the results of a new feasibility study that concluded “positive conditions” for a new indoor venue in Bend.
But some in the industry say the study isn’t thinking big enough. Meanwhile, separate efforts to build a dedicated performing arts center and an indoor ice sports facility say they’re moving ahead with site selection and land acquisition.
Widespread interest in new indoor venue spaces was part of what prompted Visit Bend to commission a feasibility study for a “public assembly event venue” in Bend earlier this year, said CEO Jeff Knapp.
“There’s strong enough reason to explore the question,” Knapp told the Source in an interview. “It would be remiss for us not to ask that question at this time and place.”
Visit Bend is the organization tasked with promoting tourism for the City. It’s funded through lodging tax, which visitors pay on hotel and short term rental stays in Bend. About two-thirds of lodging tax revenue goes back to City coffers, and the rest goes to Visit Bend for marketing and other local projects.
Visit Bend spent $60,000 on the initial feasibility study, which analyzed the market for a venue and produced rough concepts along with financial projections.
Versatility is key
According to the study, the Bend area is one of the only markets of its size in the country without either a dedicated performing arts center, convention center, multipurpose arena or 1,000 to 3,000-person capacity club or concert hall.
The study estimates that building all four of those venues would cost about $500 million.
“We don’t have any of those four venues,” John Kaatz, principal with CSL International, a consulting firm hired by Visit Bend to complete the study, told the City Council April 22. “We also know that we can’t build all four — completely unaffordable. We have to be multipurpose.”
The study distills a rough concept for a multi-use venue that could host concerts, comedy, performing arts, banquets, conventions and more. The study suggests a venue with up to 30,000 feet of flat floor space, 10,000 feet of ballroom space, 7,500-square-foot meeting space and portable tiered seating with up to a 2,000-person capacity. The floor space could hold an estimated 1,500 people, while the ballroom could hold 650 people. That size of venue would have about one-third more sellable square footage than the next largest convention space in Bend, the Riverhouse Lodge — which declined to comment for this story — but about half as much space as the Deschutes County Fair and Expo Center in Redmond. At 40,000 square feet, the First Interstate Bank Center there is the largest continuous event space in Central Oregon, large enough to host rodeos and concerts.
Kaatz told the City Council a new hotel would likely need to be built so visitors could stay nearby.
The study predicts a new multi-use venue would boost lodging tax revenue by about $324,000 annually for the City and Visit Bend starting in the fourth year after it’s built. It could add 30,000 visitor days per year and nearly $20 million in direct and indirect spending.
Katy Brooks, the City of Bend’s economic development officer, said a multi-purpose arena would not only generate more spending and lodging tax but help businesses recruit and retain employees.
“This is a real economic opportunity,” said Katy Brooks, the City of Bend’s economic development officer, in an interview with the Source. “We’ve never really considered something like this before. This is a big deal. It’s really exciting. But it needs to be thoughtful, and it needs to be of Bend.”
Money maker or money loser?
As Brooks, Knapp and Kaatz presented to the City Council, Marshall Glickman was watching online.
Glickman is a former president of the Portland Trail Blazers (his father brought the team to Portland more than 50 years ago), was a special advisor for Europe’s top basketball league and runs a sports consulting business that helps with venue development. He also lives part-time in Bend.
He has eyed building a multi-use venue in Bend before, but backed away from the idea during the 2008 economic crash. He said he still sees great potential for an arena that could bring minor league sports, especially hockey, to Bend.
To that end, a venue would need to be able to host at least twice as many seats than what’s contemplated by the study, Glickman said.
Bringing in professional sports would also make the venue more financially viable, he said. According to the study, it’s projected to operate at an annual loss of $400,000 once stabilized in year four.
“These kinds of venues should be money makers, not losers,” Glickman told the Source in an interview. “They should be privately operated, and they should be anchored by a sports team.”
In an email, Knapp said the loss could theoretically be offset by lodging tax, venue sponsorships, or possible partnerships with the private sector. The study is still in the exploratory phase, so nothing is off the table, Visit Bend says.
Other projects
Meanwhile, two separate groups — one focused on an ice sports facility and another on a performing arts center — are hoping to fundraise millions of dollars to carry their visions across the finish line. Both said their projects will fill a different role than the one contemplated by Visit Bend’s study.
The Central Oregon Center for the Arts, a nonprofit, has been working for nearly 10 years to build a venue specifically designed for music, theater and dance in the region. The group completed a feasibility study in 2022, and expects to complete a new study in the coming months that narrows down potential sites.
The nonprofit will need to raise funds north of $100 million to build the center, according to previous estimates.
At the same time, a nonprofit board of realtors and business owners — all youth hockey advocates — are getting ready to launch a fundraising campaign for a $35-$40 million indoor ice facility geared toward youth programs and recreation. They’ve drafted renderings for “The Forge” — a 70,000-square-foot building with two sheets of ice, a host of other event and meeting spaces and room for 1,000 spectators.
Tyler Brower, a former professional hockey player and strategist for the effort, told the Source the Forge group is working on finalizing a deal for a seven-acre property to build the ice facility, but declined to say where.
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