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Vendor to leave Covelli early
YOUNGSTOWN
The Covelli Centre’s food-and-beverage vendor will leave the facility April 17, two weeks earlier than expected but the day after a major concert.
Officials with Centerplate, which has handled the food-and-beverage operations since the center opened in October 2005, told the city a few weeks ago that the company was postponing the transfer until May 1. But the city asked Centerplate to reconsider, and it did.
The original plan was for JAC Management, the city-owned center’s building manager, to take over food and beverages by Dec. 31.
On Wednesday, Anthony Donofrio, the city’s deputy law director, said Centerplate agreed to leave the center on April 17.
That’s the day after a concert by Sugarland, a likely sell-out, making it a profitable date for the sale of food and drinks.
Transferring the food-and-beverage services was going to increase the city’s profit on that item by about $50,000 a year, city officials say. But that would be for a full year, and the first few months of a year are the center’s busiest.
The city’s profit on food-and-beverage sales was $168,554 last year, $166,549 in 2010 and $179,319 in 2009.
The city will pay Centerplate the balance of the $1.2 million it is owed for equipment and materials bought by Boston Culinary, the company’s predecessor at the center, when the facility was built in 2005. That’s about $370,000. Centerplate bought Boston Culinary in 2009.