Pharr debuts venue for medium-sized events

PHARR — City leaders were scoping out the floors and ceilings as much as the band at a “test-run” concert last week in the Rio Grande Valley’s newest entertainment locale.

The former Pharr Convention Center, which recently was re-created into the multimillion-dollar Pharr Events Center, is set to open its doors at 3000 N. Cage Blvd. Organizers hope it will appeal to medium-sized Valley events and boost the city’s income through rentals and visitors.

“This serves a big niche from 500 people to 3,500,” venue manager J.R. Ramirez said. “It’s going to cater to a variety of shows.”

The center opens Friday night with country singer Mark Chesnutt. After that, there are 27 shows, including comedy, boxing and more music, lined up so far for the rest of the summer.

The city has been working on finalizing an agreement with Ticketmaster to sell events. It has hired former school district employee Roy Garcia to run day-to-day operations at the location and is working on a contract with Ramirez to manage it.

Ramirez’s father, Arnaldo Ramirez, will serve as the booking agent with his company Bookem Nano. Arnaldo Ramirez owned McAllen’s La Villa Real Special Events Center for 30 years and said he hoped the Pharr Events Center could try to take the place of La Villa Real, which closed in 2006.

City leaders and the Ramirezes said the strength of the Pharr Events Center is not its ability to compete with venues such as the McAllen Convention Center and State Farm Arena, but rather, its ability to distinguish itself from them. The center is designed to appeal to acts too big for a bar or nightclub, but not large enough to require a huge space.

“I have turned down many mid-size concerts and dances due to the lack of adequate space for these type of shows,” Arnaldo Ramirez said in a statement. “We wanted to add a much needed venue.”

BUILDING AN EVENTS CENTER

The move to create a nice concert venue out of the Pharr Convention Center, traditionally a location for quinceañeras, trade shows and boxing matches, came about quietly.

The city originally announced an $800,000 renovation of the facility in July, insisting its role in the community would remain the same. Instead, the endeavor turned into a complete rebuild with a goal of changing the building’s role and a final price tag of about $2.4 million.

The tab includes $200,000 in steel work, $154,000 in stone work, a $64,000 air-conditioning system, $18,000 in new windows, $73,000 on new bathrooms and plumbing, $20,000 on landscaping, $325,000 in an overhaul of the electric system and $50,000 for parking.

City Manager Fred Sandoval said the cost had jumped due to code problems and unforeseen costs. Workers had to demolish a second floor that had become a problem. Roof trusses had to be re-engineered to hold lighting. And the electrical system was not powerful enough to support concerts.

Bathrooms and air-conditioning units were vandalized during the construction process, and the city didn’t initially plan for the costs of putting in a security system with cameras or paving the parking lots, he said.

Still, the vision always had been to shift the building’s use away from small, private events, Sandoval said. At a meeting May 17, city leaders approved charging $15,000 to rent the building for weddings and quinceañeras — up from $2,800. Ticketed events, such as concerts, have only a $5,000 rental fee.

“From the very beginning, we had that goal (of changing the building’s use),” Sandoval said. “The thought was to turn it into a profit center, because before we were losing money.”

Pharr will collect a $2 facility fee from each ticket sold as well as 30 percent of all beer and wine sales and 25 percent of other onsite food and beverage sales. Sandoval said he was confident the model would make money.

“This whole thing came from the need for a venue of this size,” he said. “When you can fit 900 to 3,000 people into a venue and make it fairly affordable, there’s a niche there. We’re not trying to compete with (State Farm) Arena. We’re not trying to compete with the McAllen Convention Center.

“We’re doing our own thing.”

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Elizabeth Findell covers Pharr, San Juan, Alamo, the Mid-Valley and general assignments for The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4428.