About the Auditorium District

The event center is being designed by Booth Architecture, Pocatello. Civil engineering is being done by Rocky Mountain Engineering Systems (RMES) of Pocatello. Design and engineering specifications are expected to be complete by mid-March, 2014. A Request for Bid for construction of this public works project will follow. Qualified local contractors will have the opportunity to bid on the facility’s construction.

40,000 sq. ft. multipurpose event center.
Seating for 2,000-plus.
Configurable to host a wide range of events – sporting events, trade shows, concerts, regional/national competitions, and other events.

PCAD expects to break ground on construction in mid-May, with the facility to be completed early in 2015.

Mission Statement

The Idaho legislature authorized the creation of auditorium districts because such districts “will serve the public need…and will promote the prosperity…of the inhabitants” of those districts. According to the legislation:

An auditorium…district is one to build, operate, maintain, market and manage for the public, commercial and/or industrial purposes…public auditoriums, exhibition halls, convention centers, sports arenas and facilities of a similar nature.

The Pocatello-Chubbuck Auditorium District’s mission is to build, operate and market a multipurpose center for the economic benefit of the community.

History/Background

Local voters approved the creation of the Pocatello-Chubbuck Auditorium District in 1998.

A Multipurpose Event Center:
An Important Economic Development Asset

Why do we need a multipurpose event center in our community?

When a community can host events, those events bring dollars into the community.

An in-depth feasibility study concluded that there are dozens of small-to-midsize events our community can host with the right facility – sporting events, trade shows, enthusiast groups, regional and national competitions, concerts, and many other types of events.

The feasibility study also concluded that the community doesn’t currently have the right facility to successfully attract and host these sorts of events. It simply doesn’t exist in the community right now.

What the community needs is a modern, mid-size multipurpose event center.

And that’s what the Pocatello-Chubbuck Auditorium District was formed to do: build, operate and market an event center for the benefit of the community’s economy.

How The Event Center Will Promote Economic Development

The majority of events that will be hosted at the community’s new multipurpose event center will attract visitors from out of town. When visitors come to our community, they spend money in our local businesses: restaurants, hotels, gas stations, grocery stores, and many other retail establishments.

The money visitors spend creates new employment and wages. Those paychecks, in turn, get spent in our community on housing, health care, groceries and on dozens of other things, creating even more additional employment and income.

This “ripple effect,” or recirculation of dollars, means that the economic impact of being able to host events in the community goes far beyond the immediate expenditures visitors to our community make in local retail establishments. The entire community benefits from being able to host events that attract visitors.

And because these new jobs in the community also mean new taxpayers, our community can make investments in education and better public services that are key to attracting even more high-quality employers to the area.

A modern multipurpose event center will have a significant impact on economic development and good jobs in the community.

A good example of the kind of benefits an event center can bring to a community is Boise’s Centre on the Grove, the facility operated by that city’s auditorium district. The Centre on the Grove hosts dozens of high-quality events every year, and has become the hub of a thriving business area.

How The Multipurpose Event Center is Funded

Travelers staying at our community’s hotels and motels pay a five percent tax on their rooms. Those funds are passed on to the auditorium district to operate and market the event center. No one in the community pays the tax unless they stay in one of our local hotels.

These hotel room taxes are a common practice in communities across the country. Sometimes they’re called a “Convention and Tourism Tax,” or a “Bed/Occupancy Room Tax” or a similar name, but they all have the same purpose: to help the community market itself to travelers in one way or another, thereby helping the local economy.

In addition, the multipurpose event center will realize fees and other revenues from use of the center.