In one of the bigger comebacks in Atlanta sports this year, the city’s proposed College Football Hall of Fame rallied from fourth-and-long deep in its own territory to first-and-goal.
As college football season winds down, organizers are gearing up to break ground on the downtown attraction by early next year. Finishing touches are being put on construction drawings. Work continues on exhibit designs. Organizers vow that the oft-delayed hall finally will open in fall 2014.
Amid the swirl of activity, John Stephenson — interim CEO of Atlanta Hall Management, the non-profit entity formed to build and operate the college-football shrine here — conceded in a recent interview that aborting the high-profile project was a possibility at the start of this year.
The National Football Foundation, which owns the hall, voted in September 2009 to relocate it from South Bend, Ind., to Atlanta. The decision came with great fanfare, and the project had strong momentum for a while. But by late last year, it had stalled noticeably.
Fundraising, in a tough economy, was far short of the level needed. Stephenson replaced Gary Stokan as Atlanta Hall Management’s leader, and the organization’s expanded board and committees undertook a re-examination of the project. Everything was on the table, including taking the whole thing off the table.
“I mean, not doing this was an option — had to be,” said Stephenson, an Atlanta lawyer. “But I wanted to make sure that if we were going to decide not to do it, that decision would be a result of good diligence and analysis and study.
“It was an option, but it wasn’t the answer. … We decided ‘no’ wasn’t the answer because our analysis never led us there.”
In retrospect, Stephenson said he believes the organization’s re-examination of the project gave potential sponsors increased confidence in the discipline and diligence behind it.
Firm corporate-sponsorship commitments grew from about $17.5 million at the start of this year to $51.5 million in signed contracts by September, Atlanta Hall Management said. That enabled AHM to satisfy fundraising conditions required by a syndicate of three banks to qualify for loan commitments of $22.5 million.
The combination of sponsorships and loans satisfied a contingency clause in AHM’s lease to build on state property — the Georgia World Congress Center Authority’s “green” parking lot on Marietta Street, across from Centennial Olympic Park. The ground lease, signed last year, stipulated that construction could not begin until funding was in place to finish the job. Several state agencies agreed this fall that construction could commence.
“AHM has furnished reasonable evidence of sponsorship and financing in an amount to fully finance 100% of the … project,” State Properties Commission executive director Steven Stancil wrote in an Oct. 10 letter to Stephenson. “The financing contingency is satisfied.”
Several days earlier, the state’s top leaders gathered in a room at the state Capitol for a meeting of the Georgia State Finance and Investment Commission to approve a piece of the financing for the project.
“I think this is one of the greatest success stories we’ve had in a while,” Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle said.
“This is indeed a turnaround from a project that appeared to have to be taken off the table completely,” Gov. Nathan Deal added.
At the same meeting, GWCCA executive director Frank Poe observed that the project “struggled through 2010 and really 2011 in securing private-sector funding.”
Stephenson puts the cost of the project, to be privately funded at $66.9 million, at less than the total now committed in sponsorships and loans. In addition, the GWCCA, a state agency, expects to secure $15 million in state funding for a parking deck, road work and a new entrance to the Congress Center’s Building A, which is adjacent to the hall site.
AHM identified two of its corporate sponsors early on — Chick-fil-A and Coca-Cola — and others will be announced soon. AHM plans to continue to seek additional sponsors, with the goal of having the bank loans paid off when the building opens.
“We’ve got two years to do it,” Stephenson said, “and our options are a lot wider now that we’re a go.”
Consultants have projected an attendance of 500,000 visitors annually, Stephenson said. The hall’s proposed budget will allow it to break even with attendance of 380,000 to 390,000, he said. The business model calls for operating expenses to be fully covered by three revenue streams: attendance, retail sales and events.
South Bend’s Hall of Fame will close next month, and exhibits will be stored until the Atlanta facility opens.
Inside the attraction, the centerpiece will be a football field (less than full size) as gathering spot and event space. Among changes in plans made during the re-examination: moving the retail store to the front of the building, facing Marietta Street and the park.
“This is the perfect place,” Stephenson said, “for this college football-themed attraction.”
“I hate to say all the pieces have fallen into place because that makes it seem like they were floating around out there,” National Football Foundation president and CEO Steve Hatchell said in an interview last month. “What I think transpired is that a dream became a reality. There were a lot of very positive things that were out there since ’09 that just needed careful and thoughtful processing.”
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