SBJ Facilities: Flexibility behind new Irwin-bluecube deal

A new year, new tie-up.

Venue seating firms Irwin and bluecube are launching Venue360, a system of interrelated and interchangeable furniture equipment that all fits on a rail system embedded in a platform floor, minimizing the need for more permanent connection to sports venues’ seating bowl concrete.

The rail system is the foundational aspect; everything connected to it can be changed (even demountable platforms), giving venue operations crews flexibility for different event types and venue owners flexibility in how they configure their venue in the future.

In the past, bluecube has collaborated with other venue seating providers, like DreamSeat in the U.S. But bluecube and Irwin will exclusively offer the Venue360 system, sharing investment in the system's creation as well as subsequent financial results (bluecube will continue to work with other U.S. seating providers on other projects and product offerings).

Irwin, one of the oldest and biggest companies in the North American venue seating market, and bluecube, whose business is more international, have collaborated on venue seating projects for roughly 17 years, including, most recently, The Sphere. The partnership will help each company grow in the opposite markets. And they’ve opened a working space in Kansas City, home of the sports architecture world, that will act as a showroom for the Venue360 concept, and a hub for idea development where the two companies will meet with current and prospective clients and discuss their needs.

“We’re not naive enough to think we have all the answers today,” said Coke Irwin, SVP/sales and marketing at Irwin. “We have a lot of great solutions but how do we work through those solutions with stakeholders? Use a space to inspire.” 

Venue360 doesn’t exist in any venues yet; it’s intended for clients that need flexibility in their venues for seating bowls with a variety of seating types and/or host an array of event types.

Adapting to the times

Fan experience norms are changing, which is impacting seating bowls, and accordingly the seating products within them (if there even are any). That, along with several younger companies that have brought new products and concepts to bear (like DreamSeat and 4Topps), have reenergized the sports venue seating industry, which was long dominated in the U.S. by a handful of companies with over a century of experience, including Irwin.

“What we were noticing over the years is that the trend was for a lot more flexible spaces,” said bluecube managing director Russell Plant. “Putting on international events like World Cups or Olympic events and whatnot, we noticed that the type of equipment we needed to deliver was a lot broader than just seating.”

Selling Venue360 as a complete system (it’ll besold, not rented) is the key aspect. In the past, putting together a package of furniture options meant procuring incompatible products from different vendors. The idea stemmed from Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, where bluecube (on its own, without Irwin) installed a similar system for a venue that needed flexibility (like hosting NFL games) and an array of seating products, including standing room-only sections.

The additions of what would now be called Venue360 almost doubled the value of that contract with Tottenham, according to bluecube commercial director Steve Bartlett.

During a sports tech event at HOK’s London office in early 2024, Stephen Sidlo approached one of the firm’s architects, Lee Johnston, and asked if he might consider helping Sidlo’s electric flying car racing series, Airspeeder, imagine what its first physical facility could look like.

Johnston was equally confused and intrigued. Visions of Star Wars landspeeders entered his mind. “When you get approached with something like this -- basically redefining racing for the next generation -- we probably won’t be around in 100 years to see the impact this has, but it’ll be immense,” he said.

Airspeeder is as futuristic as it sounds. Launched in 2016 with the first race held in 2022, Airspeeder is a competitive racing series for electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL), which are currently unmanned and remotely controlled, though that is set to change this year.

Airspeeder is in conversations about building a vertiport/racing facility with a handful of international locations, including two Middle Eastern countries, as the series moves toward putting human pilots in the racers, the next evolution of the competition. “We know we can fly these machines,” Sidlo said. “What is that environment?” 

Airspeeder is not only a new sport combining elements of motorsports and esports, but a new form of transportation touching the ecommerce, shipping and defense/security industries. The vertiport and air taxi concept is gaining traction, especially in Gulf countries like the United Arab Emirates, where air taxi networks are planned to launch in the next few years.

That duality shows up in the building that HOK designed, which can be quickly converted from hosting races to a functioning air taxi hub. Airspeeder plans to make the air traffic control pit a central part of the fan experience, as opposed to other racing sports where key race decisions are made behind closed doors. 

As Airspeeder engages in conversations with potential host sites for races, the renderings provided by HOK will prove valuable, if only, said Sidlo, because “one of our big problems is to get out of our own heads at Airspeeder. We need our collaborators and partners to help us stop thinking and start actually doing.”

But when could this vertiport be built? “Fantastic question,” Sidlo said. Airspeeder just wrapped a Series B funding round in advance of its planned first human flight races this year (details of the funding round will be released in the coming weeks). “That should cause a domino effect to more investment, will open the door to more locations requesting us to race there,” he added. “Then we can start to plan more infrastructure.” 

FC Cincinnati and Marquee Development’s $330 million West End mixed-use project next to TQL Stadium may have flown under the radar a bit in 2024, but it’s worth a New Year check-in -- in part because it represents a more realistic level of investment for many pro sports teams, especially in MLS.

The first of two construction phases will take the development halfway from Central Parkway (east of TQL Stadium) to John Street, highlighted by a pair of 13-story buildings. One will include office space and apartments, while the other will house a 12-story, 188-key hotel and a first-floor, 1,200-capacity entertainment venue that sits below grade (the site drops 25 feet from Central Parkway to John Street), as well as open plaza areas adjacent to the soon-to-be four-year-old stadium.

FC Cincinnati received a site readiness grant from the state of Ohio, jump-starting six months of site preparation work. Demolition is underway now, and Phase 1 construction will commence this summer, lasting roughly two years and finishing around June 2027. 

The second phase could include up to five additional buildings and a million square feet of development. Rios, which is also designing the 1901 Project in Chicago and OCVibe in Anaheim, is FC Cincinnati’s master planning architect.  

FC Cincinnati owns everything in the district and will bring in professional partners to manage different aspects of it, including, for example, the hotel (Davidson Hospitality Group). Investment partners Marquee will help manage and program the space once it’s built out.

“It is already part of a great neighborhood, so we want to create a great district to accentuate the neighborhood we’re already a part of,” said FC Cincinnati Chief Development Officer Chad Munitz.

Munitz runs Lion Ventures, the FC Cincinnati holding company’s non-MLS soccer revenue group. Lion Ventures sources and books third-party events at TQL Stadium, including U.S. men’s and women’s national team games and concerts, and is also involved in venture capital, including through LEAD’s Lead One fund (LEAD was launched by the Dassler family, of Adidas fame, in 2017). The money Lion Ventures brings in helps the men’s soccer team (and maybe a women’s in the future).

“The real estate is a huge part of that,” said Munitz. "We’re really pursuing a number of new revenue streams that are outside of the club, revenue that we would make from just men’s soccer matches.”

Full marks for creativity from West Coast Pretzels, which provided these rose-shaped pretzels for Levy and the Rose Bowl. They seem a little harder to eat than a traditionally shaped pretzel, but I’m down for eating this gem. 

I loved this story from the New Yorker -- "Is There Any Escape from the Spotify Syndrome?"-- because I’m quickly turning against algorithms serving me suggestions. That’s especially true when it comes to music, the discovery of which has always been one of the most enjoyable parts (especially when it comes from family members or friends and stretches my horizons, instead of just reinforcing them).

• In his most recent SBJ Football newsletter, my colleague Ben Fischer writes that the biggest NFL venue dilemma you probably haven’t read much about is in Houston, where 22-year-old NRG Stadium needs quite a bit of work -- billions, according to recent studies -- and there’s been scant public attention paid to it so far. 

• The A’s’ failure to get a new ballpark built at Oakland's Howard Terminal site and subsequent move out of the city created two new venue possibilities for the USL Championship club Oakland Roots and Soul Sports Club (ORSSC), the umbrella company that owns the Roots and USL W League Soul.