Cavaliers Operating Co. Bids To Manage Local College Arena

CSU's Board of Trustees Expected To Vote On New Contract For Wolstein Center On Thursday

Cavaliers Operating Co. (COC) was one of "two bidders recently" seeking to manage Cleveland State Univ.'s (CSU) Wolstein Center, according to Janet Okoben of the Cleveland PLAIN DEALER. CSU's Board of Trustees Thursday is "expected to vote on a new contract," and the university's "bid analysis presented last week to a trustees committee clearly favored SMG, the company that currently holds the management contract." However, the committee "decided to reject both bids and to rebid the contract" rather than "recommending a contract extension with SMG." The company's current management contract expires October 1, but CSU has asked SMG to "stay on until the end of June 2010 while CSU rebids the project." COC, which operates Quicken Loans Arena, "proposed a yearly base fee of $200,000, while SMG offered a fee of $100,000." CSU indicated that over five years, fees to COC would total about $1.4M, while SMG's fees would be about $998,000. SMG offered a "gift of $410,000 for construction projects" at the arena, while the COC proposal included a $1M, "no-interest loan for a new scoreboard and required that Wolstein Center tickets be processed through Veritix," a company owned by Cavaliers Owner Dan Gilbert (Cleveland PLAIN DEALER, 7/25).