City to review deal on center

The settlement includes the company paying the city.

By DAVID SKOLNICK

CITY HALL REPORTER

YOUNGSTOWN — City officials will consider an agreement today to dissolve International Coliseums Co.’s contract to manage the Chevrolet Centre.

The two sides have come to a tentative agreement that ends the two-year relationship, said Mayor Jay Williams.

“Financial considerations are part of the negotiations,” said Williams, who declined to give specifics.

The city will get about $600,000 from ICC as part of the settlement, a person familiar with the deal said.

During a contract-restructuring deal in July 2006, ICC agreed to guarantee the city would receive at least $600,000 annually each Sept. 1 regardless of the financial success of the city-owned facility.

The company filed a federal lawsuit Sept. 19 claiming the city breached its contract and ICC shouldn’t be responsible for paying the $600,000.

A federal judge then ordered ICC’s attorneys to amend the suit and make it more specific. The filing of that amended lawsuit was to be Friday, but with the matter apparently resolved, it won’t be filed again.

“Presently we do not have a signed agreement with the city of Youngstown,” Rudy R. Miller, chairman of The Miller Group, a Phoenix company that serves as ICC’s media adviser, said Tuesday. “We are very optimistic that discussions we’re presently having with the city will be fruitful over the next 24 hours.”

City council is to consider the deal at its 5:30 p.m. meeting today. If council supports the proposal, the city board of control is to meet at 6:30 p.m. to approve it.

ICC, a subsidiary of the Phoenix-based Global Entertainment Corp., is expected to endorse the settlement today.

Because of the cost of a lawsuit, which Williams called “prohibitively expensive,” the city administration is recommending city council endorse the settlement.

If the settlement is reached, ICC will cease being the center’s manager, said Williams, who didn’t give a time line for the company’s departure. ICC receives $12,500 a month in management fees as well as percentages of the sale of club seats, luxury suites, advertising and other items at the center.

The city is talking to various entities to run the center initially on an interim basis and plans to eventually sign a long-term deal with a company to handle those responsibilities. Williams declined to disclose the companies.

City officials aren’t pleased with ICC’s failure to turn a profit at the facility as well as its inability to meet its financial projections.

The city was going to fire ICC last summer before the $600,000 guarantee was negotiated, Williams said. The city also told ICC it was going to file a lawsuit to terminate the management agreement before the company sued Youngstown, Williams said.

skolnick@vindy.com