What can be done to turn the Sears Centre around?

The Sears Centre was supposed to draw business to Hoffman Estates' Prairie Stone Business Park. But, aside from the all-too-rare sellout, the arena couldn't even draw a full house of fans for big-name music acts.

That was one of several downfalls for the nearly 3-year-old arena. Now, the question is what can be done to alter its fortunes for the future.

Hoffman Estates is now considering taking the venue over, as agreed upon in the beginning if Ryan Cos., majority owner along with a 25 percent stake from Sears, couldn't make it a going concern.

Ryan has said it can continue to make payments through 2010 on the reported $3.9 million a year in interest on the initial $50 million loan, but it doesn't look any closer to clearing a profit. In fact, it's quite the opposite: The Sears Centre played host to but eight concerts last year, where a 2005 feasibility study said at least 20 were needed, and there is nothing currently on the calendar between the U.S.-Italy men's volleyball match this past weekend and the debut of the Lingerie Football League in September.

Yet, village officials are confident Sears can take off, though they continue to struggle to find just the right formula for success without risking tax dollars. New management and better promotion could help it reach its potential, they say.

Compared to competing Allstate Arena in Rosement, Sears is clearly struggling. The well-established Allstate Arena, perched on I-90, cleared $4.9 million last year, according to a third-party audit. The Sears, which debuted late in 2006, lost more than $500,000, independent of the annual payments on the initial loan.

State Rep. Fred Crespo was the only person to vote against the deal when he was a Hoffman Estates trustee in 2005. "I voted based on my gut feeling and based on what I knew at the time," he said, "but I hope it works."

That depends on what's really wrong with the Sears Centre and what can realistically be addressed.

Although impressive-looking from the outside, as seen from the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway, the Sears Centre is all Spartan concrete on the inside, really just a shrunken version of the Allstate Arena, albeit with moderately better acoustics.

The Sears seats about 11,000, about 7,500 less than the Allstate for a concert and more than 10,000 less than the United Center.

It got off to a shaky start. Early concerts were plagued by reports of long lines - both for cars to get into and out of the parking lots and for women to get into the restrooms. Then the first minor-league Hounds hockey game scheduled there had to be canceled because the ice-making equipment failed to provide a playable surface.

Indeed, if the Sears Centre had some design flaws, it was plagued by even worse luck. The Allstate Arena could always fall back on DePaul men's basketball, which had a stake in maintaining a high profile in Rosemont as a big-time college program, and the minor-league hockey Wolves, who proved to be model tenants both in promotion and in the family clientele they attract. That venue also had a long-term commitment from the Ringling Bros. Circus.

By contrast, when the economy tanked, the Sears Centre saw the Hounds, the indoor-soccer Storm and the indoor-lacrosse Shamrox all fold. That left only Steve McMichael's Slaughter, not exactly a huge draw, even as champions of the Continental Indoor Football League.

As a result, the Sears Centre never hit the projected 140 dates a year for events, instead averaging fewer than 100 over its first three years.

Hoffman Estates officials and others acknowledge there have been missteps, but say several key problems are being corrected.

A simple matter of increased promotion would address many of the problems, Hoffman Estates Village Manager James Norris said. "That's one of the reasons we're looking at a national management firm," Norris said.

Crespo blamed poor marketing on the part of the arena's first executive director, Steve Hyman, who has since moved on to run the 21,000-seat Alerus Center in North Dakota. "I'm not sure he understood that landscape out there in terms of entertainment, in terms of the other players out there," Crespo said.

Tickets at Sears Centre now are available at Ticketmaster, but that wasn't always the case. The arena initially bucked TicketMaster's near-monopoly on advance sales, instead going with its own operations using Paciolan ticketing software. Yet, it was hard to find online, with the British spelling of searscentre.com making it unnecessarily difficult for concertgoers to type it into their Web browsers.

Make no mistake, there was also cutthroat competition, from both Harry Pappas, executive director of the Allstate Arena, and Bill Wirtz, then owner of the United Center in Chicago. Pappas said he "absolutely" played hardball against the Sears Centre, but added that from the beginning he had warned of disaster and brandished his long-term agreements with acts like the circus and promoters like Live Nation, which has a preferred agreement with the Allstate. "But they ignored all that," he added.

Hoffman Estates is reportedly basing its hopes on turning it over to a large national management firm. According to the audit, three have expressed interest: AEG Live, SMG and Global Spectrum. Jam Productions, one of Chicago's top promoters, would figure to lead the way in doing business with any of them, especially as it has its own sometimes contentious relationship with Ticketmaster and Live Nation, which are now attempting a merger.

"The Sears Centre is a great arena that the larger national promoters, other than Jam, have overlooked," said Jam President Jerry Mikelson. "Just about every one of them could have presented some of their concerts in Hoffman Estates, but didn't. Jam will do our best to continue to bring events to the Sears Centre."

If the village took over public ownership, it would also free up about $1.8 million a year now being paid in property taxes. "I honestly think part of the problem is the building has too many dollars that have to go out," Hyman, speaking from North Dakota, said.

Norris emphasized that the village taking over the Sears Centre and losing that tax revenue hasn't yet come to pass. Some village officials have called that the "worst-case scenario," and they aren't entertaining thoughts of anything more dire.

As Trustee Karen Mills said, allowing the Sears Centre to fail would be "a totally losing proposition."

• Ashok Selvam contributed to this report.