Features
Rubber Bowl Facing Demise
The fate of the 35,000-seat
– The Rubber Bowl in Akron, Ohio.
Team 1 Properties, which purchased the property in 2013, has less than a month to come up with back taxes and other costs in the amount of $196,166.93.
Company attorney William Corgan said it doesn’t have the funds to cover that, according to the Akron Beacon Journal.
“Unfortunately, they just can’t,” Corgan told the paper. “And investors aren’t willing to put the money in to redeem the taxes without the security that they’ll be able to operate the Rubber Bowl as a music venue in the future.”
Team 1 had planned to turn the property into a concert venue and sports complex, but that plan fell through.
Corgan said the city was presented with a plan for a music venue in April. In that proposal, Team 1 would gift the stadium to the city, which would then lease it to Team 1. Potential investors would have been ready to contribute under those terms, Corgan said, but the city turned it down because of violations and safety concerns at the aging property, the Journal said.
The initial cost to the city to tear down the venue, opened in 1940, is estimated to be $200,000.