Why was the Crown Complex built where it was?

The Cumberland County Memorial Arena and Auditorium opened a half-century ago. Considering the time frame, the FayWHAT? question of "Why was the Crown Complex built where it is?" has proven to be a tough one to unravel.

Apparently, all the county commissioners from that time are deceased, and FayWHAT? has been unsuccessful in trying to track down Jack Shands, the building's first director who may or may not be living in Florida now.

It would take hours of scrutinizing microfilm copies of the Fayetteville Observer from the 1960s, leading up to the arena's opening in 1968 with a show by Paul Revere and the Raiders.

"All them folks gone home. I think all the county commissioners are gone. I'm 85," said Billy Horne, the former mayor of Stedman who served on the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners from 1970 through 1982. "The complex was really before I was county commissioner. I know that the politicians, including Charlie Rose, helped a lot with the preliminary stuff."

The Civic Center complex, as it was originally named, stands off U.S. 301/Interstate 95 Business on the eastern side of Fayetteville. Today, the Crown Complex includes the 10,000-seat Crown Coliseum, the 6,000-seat Cumberland County Memorial Arena, the roughly 2,400-seat Cumberland County Memorial Auditorium and the Agri-Expo Center.

"It was the right location at that time," Horne said. "The auditorium did great for many years. Big crowds. It was a driving thing for a long time."

Although he wasn't among those who made the decision on where to build, he said, "I reckon the county had something to do with the property then."

Wilson Rogers, who took over management following Shands' departure in 1980, confirmed Horne's hunch. It was an active corridor, he recalled, and the county already owned the land where a youth detention center and the old Fayetteville City Schools offices were located. The state Highway Patrol also had offices at the same site.

"They held the land," the 74-year-old Rogers said of the county, "so that was something they didn't have to buy. When it first opened, it was out there where people could see it. Everybody going north and south (on U.S. 301) went right by it."

That direct proximity to U.S. 301 — remember, the arena and auditorium were built before Interstate 95 came through this part of the state — also played a role in putting the Crown Complex where it is today. 

The Agri-Expo Center was the third piece of the complex to open, in the middle 1980s, according to Rogers.

The aging Crown Theatre (formerly, the auditorium) has been back in the news recently. Discussions about a new performing arts center in Cumberland County are being weighed as county officials consider spending more than $2 million to renovate the theater.

The discussions are happening as work continues on a $37.8 million minor league baseball stadium in downtown Fayetteville.

References to a performing arts center date back more than 15 years to the city’s Renaissance Plan that was adopted in 2002 as a 20-year blueprint for downtown development. The consultant recommended that the city, the Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County and other agencies sign an agreement on how they would cooperate to develop a performing arts center and identify a site for it.

Deborah Martin Mintz, the executive director of the Arts Council, has said that about the same time the Arts Council board authorized the feasibility study for the performing arts center, the Crown was assessing its own theater. As a result, she said, the Arts Council decided to hold off on the performing arts center aspect of its study until the Crown assessment was complete.

An evaluation of the Crown Theatre — which hosts smaller scale theatrical events, concerts and comedy shows — started in April 2015 after a $47,000 report listed 16 issues at the venue.

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After more than four years in the making, the $55 million Cumberland County Crown Coliseum opened to the public on Oct. 23, 1997. The first event held in the new sports and entertainment arena was a minor league hockey match, with the expansion Fayetteville Force making its Central Hockey League debut.

The building has since been renamed the Crown Coliseum.

A simple ceremony marking the opening 21 years ago was staged on the night of the kickoff Thursday night game between the Force and the Nashville Flyers. The Crown’s grand opening came seven days later with a top-tier country music concert featuring Reba McEntire and Brooks and Dunn.

Long-time backers hoped the Crown would give the city and Cumberland County an economic boost and some well-needed luster — a new image, in fact.

Not everyone was on board.

Those critical of the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners' handling of the building-related decisions led to the project being branded "the Bubba Dome." Some county residents were upset that the ambitious undertaking wasn't brought before the voting public in a referendum.

"The means of financing did not require a vote. If you're issuing bonds, then you would require a referendum," said Marshall Faircloth, who was vice chair of the Cumberland County Coliseum Commission in the years leading up to the opening of the Crown. Instead, a method of financing called certificate of participation was used, with the building itself put up as collateral.

For the first few years, Christian, country and rap music concerts and professional wrestling proved to be among the most popular events held in the building. The Crown's first major show came in February 2000, when classic rocker Elton John rocked the house for more than three hours.

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As for the location, Rogers said, "We wanted to put the Crown out by Cross Creek Mall. We wanted folks to be able to come to a show and be able to eat, shop while out of town. It would be that economic pump."

In 1994, three years before the Crown opened, the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners agreed to pay $2.5 million to buy additional land for the building. The 15 to 20 acres for the coliseum were located east of U.S. 301 and south of Wilkes Road. The acquisition included several boundaries on the northern area of the property, where Lee Warren said it made a lot of sense to acquire the land.

Warren was appointed to the coliseum commission in January 1990 and served on the board for two years before being elected a county commissioner in 1992. He is now the Register of Deeds for the county.

Faircloth, who now serves as vice chairman of the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners, said, "Downtown was not even on the radar.

"There was never any real discussion of the location. The county already had the property," he said. "We had on the property already the auditorium and the arena. It was just a natural adjunct to the property. I don't recall the board looking anywhere else at the time. It was a natural fit to build the coliseum on that site."

"We had three buildings and basically added the coliseum where it was a lot cheaper than if we had gone anywhere else," he said. "I don't think there ever was any consideration of going anywhere else. If that decision were to be made today, there's a lot more downtown development potential and positive growth that has gone on (over) the last 10 years or so so that facility may have been built downtown. You have to think back in the early '90s, there wasn't much downtown."

Around the time the county commissioners were debating the location, Warren said, a number of hoteliers were looking at building a convention hotel adjacent to the property. Had that happened, he added, "This would have been a whole different ballgame."

One company intended to construct a convention hotel across from the Agri-Expo Center, complete with a connecting overhead walkway that loomed over East Mountain Drive, according to Warren.

"That just didn't happen, but it was in the mix," Warren said. "It was under consideration when we had to make that decision. I think not having a big convention property adjacent to the property has probably limited the ability for that (the Crown Coliseum) to be as successful as it could have been."

Staff writer Michael Futch can be reached at mfutch@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3529.