Concert shows potential for military bases

Real Estate Weekly, Sept 4, 1996 by Lois Weiss

While Staten Island explores off-shore casino gambling and Upstate Rome is turning Griffiss Air Force Base into the Griffiss Business and Technology Park anchored by a military-run advanced technology research lab, other communities are doing some exploratory "Phishing."

In Plattsburgh, the closing of the local air force base last September left the area with a $190 million a year hole to fill in lost earnings, tax dollars and even coffee and donuts sold.

But the 5,000-acre site, replete with beautiful brick homes, dormitories and assorted structures, including a bowling alley, is presenting many opportunities.

The airport section itself has a million square feet of adjacent empty industrial buildings. They surround a 2.5 mile runway that is currently closed to air traffic but is a backup facility for Space Shuttle landings. At 300-feet wide, it is also three times wider than a normal runway and in itself, recently became an economic generator.

While Plattsburgh Airbase Redevelopment Corp. (PARC) was formed to market the base as an industrial distribution center and for other purposes, when approached for use as a concert site, officials decided such a one-shot event would help provide an added boost to the area.

"It adds to the name recognition," said Mark L. Barie, president and CEO of PARC. "But does [a concert] bring a CEO? I don't know."

What he is hoping is that perhaps the CEO parent of a fan will hear about it and that the concert-goers come back another time to enjoy the recreational opportunities that abound in the region.

The airbase is adjacent to the sailing paradise of Lake Champlain and is a few miles south of the Canadian border. An hour from Burlington, it is served by the local Plattsburgh as well as Burlington airports.

But Burlington also happens to be "Phish" country. The local rock band formed at the University of Vermont, and has grown in popularity exponentially. It has a following that emulates those of the now-defunct Grateful Dead with a primarily 18-to 30 - year old crowd of peaceful, wealthy fans that follows the band around the country.

Last year, the final Phish concert in Sugarbush, Vermont drew 20,000 people, so band management and promoter David Werlin of Great Northeast Productions decided to look for a larger site to end this year's tour. They wanted a place that could hold close to 100,000 and provide the fans with a hassle-free, festival atmosphere.

The decommissioned airfield proved perfect. PARC, Plattsburgh and Clinton County officials worked all year with the promoter and the band, attending to the requirements of the State's mass gathering rules.

"We did it because it made sense and the money looked good and we had the right facilities," said Barie. "And Great Northeast Productions was a pretty good production company."

In the middle of August, with a new dirt road carved out of the air base for close access to the New York State Thruway, and the addition of 950 portable toilets, water trucks, lighting towers and an array of vendors, health providers, security personnel and amenities, the airfield site alone was turned into a playground for somewhere between 70,000 and 100,000 guests.

Most of them camped on site - at $20 a carload - for the coincidentally three-days of the Woodstock anniversary weekend. Concert-goers were confined to the airfield itself with fencing, and prevented from roaming around the rest of the airbase. The base itself is surrounded by chain link fencing topped by barbed wire.

The Phish followers are also not poor. Most hold down jobs or attend high school and college, while others live on trust funds, and are jokingly referred to as "Trustfundias." They own campers and sleek four-wheel drive vehicles, and many have cell phones and gold credit cards.

The local Plattsburgh newspaper estimated each concert-goer spent $250 in the area - between tickets, food, gas and sundries at welcoming local stores - adding $20 million to the local economy. Thousands of hotel rooms that had been developed to serve the airforce base were full once again for the weekend as performers, workers and fans gobbled them up.

Many of the concert production and security workers slept in former base housing that totals about 1,800 units in a variety of single-family homes, apartments and dormitory residences. About 400 units will remain under the long-term plan for the airbase.

With day parking free, many Plattsburgh residents also ventured on site to tour the campgrounds and partake of the party atmosphere. But a ten foot high, double wall was erected around the grassy festival and stage area - set between taxi and runway - to make it off-limits without the color coded wrist bracelet that was provided when tickets were taken.

PARC received a set fee per ticket sold, plus disbursements for providing the grounds. But Barie noted somewhat ruefully that many resourceful fans cut off the ends of their friends' security bracelets and effectively created their own "tickets."

The purpose of PARC, he said, is to develop a limited or private use air cargo and aircraft maintenance facility and Barie is targeting Canadian companies that want to get a toehold in America. He is "on-leave" from his own Canadian business consulting company, Crossborder Development, while he works on promoting PARC.