Answer Man: Thomas Wolfe to reopen, and it’s not lost money? Will Wilma Dykeman Greenway extension be delayed by I-26 Connector project?

Today’s round of questions, my smart-aleck replies, and the real answers:

Question: What is the status of repairs, and more importantly, upgrades to the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium? I attended the town hall in August, and several proposals were presented. Six months have passed and there has been no news or attempts at fundraising. I recently attended a concert at the Peace Center in Greenville, South Carolina, and was impressed by the evidence of successful community fundraising to build and sustain the hall. Asheville needs an excellent performance space!

My answer: Sure, the Peace Center is nice and all, but you certainly don’t have the added excitement of a chunk of ceiling falling on your head or maybe getting electrocuted by your chair mid-concert. Where’s the fun in that?

Real answer: The Thomas Wolfe has been in dire straits just about the whole time I’ve lived here, and I’ve been here since 1995. As I noted in a column last summer it’s always déjà vu all over again when it comes to renovations to the auditorium, which has had problems with peeling paint, uncomfortable seats that occasionally catch on fire because of faulty aisle lighting, and a couple of bricks that have tumbled from the wall onto the stage.

Last year the auditorium had to close when the air conditioning died. At the time, General Manager Chris Corl did present several proposals to City Council, but the wheels aren’t in motion for those yet.

But Corl does have some good news.

“After a brief performance hiatus, we are proud to return to ticketed performances in the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium on Saturday, March 16, with a concert featuring Zach Williams with special guest Riley Clemmons,” Corl said via email. “During the venue’s temporary closure, we were able to conduct repairs to HVAC systems, sewer lines, and a majority of chipped plaster areas on the interior columns, (no ceiling plaster repairs.)”

They also used the down time to renovate the lower level restrooms and lobby space, and steam clean every seat in the room.

“Unfortunately, a new roof leak appeared just this week which resulted in damage to the plaster along two interior pillars,” Corl said. “The roof is being repaired this coming week, and plaster repair will be completed after the Zach Williams concert.”

As far as what the work done so far has cost, Corl said that’s a little tricky to nail down.

“Things like painting, steam cleaning, and most of the plaster repair we did in house, so it just absorbed into our general budget for staffing and such,” Corl said, adding that so far the auditorium has spent $236,779 with outside contractors. “A quick rough estimate of in-house costs of materials and labor is probably around $45,000 or so.”

Corl said organizers have  got “at least another $250,000 or so to go,” but the auditorium can reopen safely now. The plan is to finish the work this spring and early summer while accommodating events.

Last August, during a tour of the facility, Corl told reporters he anticipated a drop in gross operating revenue for the 2023 fiscal year of $1.2 million, a 22 percent reduction from the previous fiscal year. On a positive note, that has not happened.

“We’re actually tracking to beat the budget this year,” Corl said “Our original budgeted revenues was just over $4.4 million; we’re tracking right now to come in around $4.7 million.”

Corl said the auditorium likely will bring City Council a budget amendment request sometime in April.

Corl offered these reasons why revenues did not drop.

1. Thomas Wolfe Auditorium events that were moved into the arena theater setup “actually performed quite well, with the vast majority selling more tickets than the maximum capacity of the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, thus ultimately generating more revenue than originally planned,” Corl said.

The Wolfe Auditorium seats about 2,400 people. When the arena is set up as a theater it’s close to twice that. For a full arena show or event it seats 7,700.

2. “Not having the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium available for booking seems to have helped us fill the arena with more of the larger revenue events,” Corl said. “When we book a TWA event we still allow for bookings in the arena, but if we book a TWA show that we know is a sellout or close, we take the arena offline, except for smaller events that will not affect the TWA event.”

They do the same the other way around, but theater shows usually book three to six months further out than arena-sized shows.

“Therefore, weekends that we normally would have the TWA booked and only accepting smaller or non-compete arena shows, remained unbooked, allowing us a much greater amount of flexibility in the programming we dropped in the arena,” Corl said. “The mid- to large-size arena events generate exponentially more revenue than a mid- to sell-out sized TWA event.”

3. “Once we were able to determine a reopening date, local, regional and national event producers were eager to get back in the market with our room size,” Corl said. “Of the 16 remaining weekends this fiscal year, we have at least one event booked on eleven of those weekends.” The city’s fiscal year ends June 30.

4. Lastly, Corl said, “Our staff has been crushing it this year. Facing concerns over the budget, we pulled a good number of duties and tasks in house that we have historically outsourced. We also asked team members to review practices and find more efficiencies, look for new event opportunities and any opportunities to generate more revenue out of the same annual events.”

As far as movement on any of the renovation plans, there’s been none. Last year, Corl offered six plans, ranging from an acoustics-driven option that would cost between $130 million and $150 million, to a much more basic one to fix the infrastructure problems and update code compliance for $42 million to $52 million.

“Although we presented the City Council with six outlines of potential renovations to the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, these were not formal proposals,” Corl said. “In the same meeting, the Council authorized our department to evaluate two specific potential options for renovation.”

You guessed it: There’s no movement yet on these proposals.

“Due to the lengthy process of designing, evaluating, and research needed, there has been no formal action to pursue either plan at this time,” Corl said. “I expect to bring more updates and options to City Council in the near future.”

For a schedule of upcoming events at the Thomas Wolfe or in the arena, visit HarrahsCherokeeCenterAsheville.com.

Stay tuned about future renovation plans. Oh, and keep an eye out for falling plaster!

Question: At a recent Asheville City Council meeting, there was a consent agenda item to allow NCDOT to do preliminary engineering on the Wilma Dykeman Greenway extension. Will that mean that we’ll have to wait for the I-26 Connector project to be done before they will do this extension? The greenway now ends at White Duck Taco, but it’s supposed to go north to Broadway. What’s the status of this extension happening? It looks like the grant money goes to the city. Here’s the consent agenda item: “Resolution authorizing the City Manager to sign an amended grant agreement with the North Carolina Dept. of Transportation (NCDOT) for the North RADTIP (Wilma Dykeman) Greenway preliminary engineering allowing NCDOT to manage the preliminary engineering phase of the project; and that City Council accept the grant funds.”

My answer: I’m guessing the connector, greenway, and all this great stuff will wrap up sometime around the nation’s tricentennial. Hey, 52 years ought to be enough time.

Real answer: Gabriel Johnson, a project manager with the NCDOT’s Asheville office, Division 13, took this one on.

“NCDOT Division 13 has hired an engineering firm to begin design,” he said via email. “Our staff, City of Asheville staff, and the engineering firm will have a design kickoff meeting in the coming weeks.”

The construction schedule for the greenway extension “will be dependent upon coordination with the construction of the I-26 Connector Project.”

As I reported Feb. 22, the bids for the two main sections of the I-26 Connector project came in a couple hundred million dollars over the projected cost, so that might throw a wrench in an already long-delayed project.

“The city of Asheville and NCDOT will continue to coordinate on the design and ultimate construction of the greenway,” City of Asheville spokesperson Kim Miller said via email. “However, a schedule for construction has not yet been determined and will be coordinated with NCDOT’s I-26 Connector Project.”

“As more information about the I-26 construction timeline becomes available, more discussion will take place between the city and NCDOT regarding the construction timeline for the greenway,” Miller added.

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Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Got a question? Send it to John Boyle at  jboyle@avlwatchdog.org or 828-337-0941. His Answer Man columns appear each Tuesday and Friday. The Watchdog’s reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/donate.