RALEIGH, N.C. _ The real commodity brokered in Thursday's agreement between the Carolina Hurricanes and the PNC Arena authority to extend their lease through 2029 wasn't money, although there was plenty of that at stake.
It was time.
This buys five more years of peace. Five more years without Tom Dundon being able to threaten to move the team. Five more years to figure out the future of PNC, whether that's upgrading the 20-year-old arena and developing the open space around it _ or looking back toward downtown.
In addition to financial support for the Hurricanes worth about $6 million per season, the term sheet the Centennial Authority approved Thursday by a 16-3 vote includes new penalty provisions should Dundon try to move the team _ they were essentially lacking from the current lease _ and a "good faith" commitment to explore either a major renovation of PNC or a new arena as 2029 approaches.
The latter remains appealing _ and expensive. The immediate challenge is making a 20-year-old building look new again. And if it is indeed too expensive to build a new arena downtown, the long-term challenge becomes bringing downtown _ or at least something like it _ to PNC.
"The long-term goal is to do the development around the arena," Dundon said. "Or it gives us time to work on something for the long term, whatever that is."
The development of the land around the arena isn't mentioned in the term sheet, but it's the key to this deal. It's the key to the arena's future.
"It's something we've talked about quite a bit and Tom Dundon is interested in doing," Centennial Authority chairman Tom McCormick said Thursday.
The arena has sat by itself, alone, isolated, for too long. People come by car and leave by car; a commuter arena. That's fine for tailgating, but in an era when urban arenas create a pre- and post-game community around them, PNC is almost completely lacking in eating and dining options.
It doesn't take much imagination to imagine what the plaza between PNC and Carter-Finley Stadium would look like as an outdoor mall full of bars and restaurants. There's enough space on the property for hotels, a second sheet of ice, even mixed-use development that could potentially include office space and apartments.
The problem is, and has always been, the numbers painted on each parking spot in the 80 acres the Centennial Authority controls to the west and north of the arena, which include thousands of assigned (and coveted) parking spots for N.C. State football. That's the hurdle that's going to have to be cleared for this to work.
In the traditional football-donor model, those assigned parking spots have extraordinary value, especially at a school with a tailgating culture as strong as N.C. State's. Over the years, N.C. State has gone as far as stationing an athletic department employee in Centennial Authority meetings to immediately voice objection to any discussion that might impact a single parking spot. (That did not, however, stop the university from plowing under hundreds of spots to build a new indoor practice facility in 2015.)
But since taking over as athletic director last year, Boo Corrigan has expressed a willingness to at least explore the conversion of some parking spots into other uses, especially if such development might benefit N.C. State by adding amenities like hotels, bars and restaurants to enhance the gameday experience for both football and basketball.
"I think you have to look at everything associated with it: Parking, crowd sizes, the introduction of ridesharing, all of those things," Corrigan said. "Clearly, tailgating means a lot to our fans. The event of a football game is a different kind of event than going to a basketball game. But a lot of times, in that side of it, it's ever evolving. To say you felt some way 20 years ago or 10 years ago, whatever it is, you have to constantly be looking at it and talking to our fans and our partners."
If Corrigan is open to replacing some surface football parking with decks and can sell that unpopular option to fans _ especially those who might not be as tailgating-focused _ the possibilities become endless.
There are other areas on the surrounding property that could potentially be developed without any impact to parking, but have environmental issues. One has contaminated soil, another abuts a wetland. That makes development more complicated, but not impossible.
The parking lots are the key. Finding a way to turn some of that land into an entertainment district, without negatively altering the N.C. State football experience, is the path forward for PNC and all of its tenants. There's a nine-year window now to figure it out.
