Posted on: Thursday, February 13, 2003

Council seeks hike in rental fees at Blaisdell

By Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Staff Writer

Proposed changes to the lease and rental policy for the Neal Blaisdell Center and Waikiki Shell could help the city attract more Mainland acts, but would put a greater burden on nonprofit organizations that use the city facilities.

The City Council Budget Committee gave preliminary approval yesterday to Bill 2, which increases the minimum rate for rents and is aimed at encouraging more productions to come to Honolulu. The bill will now be scheduled for a public hearing before the full council.

Barry Fukunaga, director of the city Department of Enterprise Services, said the city has not changed its rental fees since 1987 and the fee increase will still only partially cover operating costs. For example, the arena costs $6,650 a day to operate, but current rent is $2,000 per performance and will increase to $2,200 to $4,500.

"What we propose to do is introduce a sliding scale so that we can encourage more activity, still retain profitability, although less, but certainly gain more revenue by simply having more activity," Fukunaga said.

For touring shows, a percentage sliding rent that caps at $35,000 would attract more promoters to book shows and extend their engagements, he said.

With additional changes for food and beverage, novelty and parking concessions, Fukunaga said he expects annual revenue to increase by $652,000.

Some $150,000 of that would come from an increase to nonprofit rates, which would be one-third of the commercial rental rates. The increase caused some concern to council members, as well as representatives of the Honolulu Symphony.

The bill would also reduce the number of subsidized symphony bookings to 30 a year from 50, to free up dates for revenue-generating commercial events. Steve Bloom, the symphony's executive director, said that the bill would mean a loss in excess of $100,000 a year. "The symphony cannot survive without a subsidy from the city," he said.

However, promoter Tom Moffatt said the rate increase would help him bring in bigger concerts. "It would be a lot more attractive for a lot of performers to come back," he said, mentioning The Rock and World Wrestling Entertainment.

The committee members advanced the bill for public hearing but noted that they would work to accommodate the symphony and high schools that use the Blaisdell for graduations.

The Budget Committee also heard from the Department of Design and Construction about the long delayed elephant breeding facility at the Honolulu Zoo. Construction of the $6.1 million facility will begin this spring.