FAYETTEVILLE — Concertgoers will have to head to the Washington County Fairgrounds — not the Northwest Arkansas Mall — to catch live performances this summer at Fayetteville’s main outdoor concert venue.
Officials with the Walton Arts Center, which owns the Arkansas Music Pavilion, said Monday they plan to pack up the tent-like structure known as the AMP and move it for at least one season to a spot on the fairgrounds where carnival rides, games and food stands have been located during each year’s fair. Since 2005, the AMP has been erected in the southwest corner of the mall parking lot.
Monday’s announcement was prompted by delays in working out both a short-term and long-term lease with new mall management, said Terri Trotter, chief operating officer for the arts center.
“We just got to the point where we couldn’t wait any longer,” Trotter said. “The 2012 season couldn’t be up in the air like that.”
Arts center staff unveiled plans for a $4 million renovation to the AMP in September, contingent upon a long-term lease with the mall. Construction was supposed to begin in October and end this spring, just in time for the AMP’s first act of the year.
Arts center staff was close to working out terms of a 15-year lease when mall ownership changed hands in August, Trotter said. Bayer Properties, a Birmingham, Ala., company that specializes in managing distressed properties, began overseeing daily management of the mall in November on behalf of the mall’s new owner, CWCapital Asset Management, a division of Citigroup.
Trotter and Peter Lane, arts center CEO, said the new owner’s process for negotiating the AMP’s lease cast doubt on even the concert venue’s short-term lease, which was due for renewal this spring. They said dealing with an out-of-state company and requiring the lease to be reviewed by multiple other mall tenants slowed down the process.
Jeff Bishop, the mall’s general manager, did not respond to a phone message left late Monday afternoon.
He has said previously, however, that the AMP has had a positive economic impact on the mall during the past seven years with minimal disruptions.
A move to the county fairgrounds will put renovations to the AMP on hold, but arts center officials said those renovations will still occur in some form.
“It will happen,” said Brian Crowne, the AMP’s general manager. “It’s just a matter of where and when.”
Crowne, a former owner of the AMP before the arts center purchased it in early 2011, said the fairgrounds will make for a great concert-going experience while those details are worked out.
The new location is conveniently located off Interstate 540, he said, and there’s more room for artists and ticket holders on a space that has less of a parking-lot feel.
“The mall was a great home for seven years,” Crowne said, “(but) I think, aesthetically, and for an artist, hopefully this is a cooler place to be.”
Like Trotter and Lane, Crowne said he couldn’t wait any longer on negotiations with the mall — especially because booking for the upcoming concert season has already begun.
“The last thing we’re going to do is put our reputation on the line by booking talent and not having a venue to put them in,” Crowne said.
According to him, the 2012 season will begin with an April 21 performance by “Big Gigantic,” an electronic act from Colorado.
As in years past, not all artists are booked at the same time. Crowne said he intends to bring 12 to 15 artists to the county fairgrounds this year — roughly the same number that have performed at the mall in previous years.
Kendall Pendergraft, president of the Washington County Fair, said Monday his organization was fully on board with those plans.
“We see the AMP, short-term, as a source of revenue to help improve our facilities,” Pendergraft said.
He said concerts at the AMP could familiarize more people with the fairgrounds and could increase attendance at the annual fair.
Pendergraft also raised the possibility of incorporating a large-scale concert with this year’s event.
What’s next after the AMP’s 2012 season is less clear, but Lane said he’s still hopeful arts center staff will be able to work out a long-term lease with the mall.
According to information provided by the arts center Monday, the agreement — signed Jan. 27 with the Washington County Fair — is for one year with the option to renew for an additional one-year term.