Current Issues
During early 2007, Jay DeWispelaere, CEO of Pride Youth Programs, commented on what he felt were the inadequacies of the Charleston Civic Center. DeWispelaere originally came to Charleston to scout the city as a possible location to host Pride Youth Programs' annual anti-drug convention.
Among DeWispelaere's comments were that there was an insufficient number of meeting rooms and that the Grand Hall was not large enough for the conference's exhibit area, which includes a helicopter, a rock-climbing wall and other large features. In a stage area set up in the Grand Hall, loudspeakers had to be placed on the floor as they could not be suspended from the ceiling as with most other convention centers. The Grand Hall's low ceiling inhibited spotlight tracking on some portions of the stage area and blocked the view of the stage from the back of the Grand Hall.
As a result of DeWispelaere's comments, Charleston Mayor Danny Jones made the upgrade and expansion of the Civic Center a platform of his successful May 15, 2007 mayoral reelection campaign. On June 11, 2007, the Charleston City Council authorized a feasibility study on the expansion or replacement of the existing structure. Conventions, Sports & Leisure Int'l, a facilities planning firm in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Dallas, Texas, and the DLR Group, an architectural firm in Portland, Oregon, were hired to conducted the study.
As part of the expansion plans, the City of Charleston inquired about purchasing a 2-acre (8,100 m2) tract near the existing Civic Center and owned by the Beni Kedem Temple, a chapter of the Shriners fraternal organization. However, the Beni Kedem members voted to table the mission to sell the property to the city.
As part of a 10-year sponsorship deal with the organization, the Charleston Civic Center's new basketball court (which debuted in the 2011-12 season) is branded with a large logo for Friends of Coal, a locally-based political advocacy group. The move was criticized by local author Denise Giardina (who is an opponent of mountaintop removal mining), who believed that Friends of Coal's sponsorship was too political in nature for sporting events.
Read more about this topic: Charleston Civic Center
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