Design team presents $83M hybrid indoor/outdoor live performance venue; board invited to public discussion

Doug Stevens, James City County's county administrator and chair of the Historic Triangle Recreation Facilities Authority, introduced an informational presentation on a proposed live performance venue designed to serve Williamsburg, James City County and York County. Rick Hibbert of the design-build team walked the board through a 35% design that pairs a 68,000-square-foot indoor hall (approximately 1,000 seats fixed/portable) with a 90,000-square-foot outdoor amphitheater that can hold about 5,000 people. "It's a challenge to have a facility that can do a rock concert on a Friday night and do a piano recital on a Sunday afternoon, but we have designed something that will do just that," Hibbert said.

Hibbert said the facility shares back-of-house spaces to reduce cost and operating complexity and that the project schedule under the design-build approach could be compressed so construction overlaps finishing design; a construction window of roughly 22–24 months was presented. He provided a high-level budget baseline of just over $83,000,000 that includes interim-agreement fees already paid; theater equipment and concession/food-and-beverage equipment were noted as additional owner-supplied costs. "Little budget, we're looking at just over $83,000,000," he said.

Consultant Victus Advisors supplied demand and economic projections: conservative, mid-range and aggressive scenarios produced different event counts and impacts. The presentation cited an estimate that the building could support about 83 events and projected a range of annual attendance and hotel-room-night increases; one projection listed roughly 8,000 additional room nights and up to $17,000,000 in total economic output under multi-day-event scenarios. Hibbert and board members emphasized that these figures were based on 2024–25 modeling and would require updated inputs for tax and room-night projections.

Several supervisors asked about phasing and noise control. Hibbert said the indoor facility could be built first to provide shared back-of-house capability and that the design includes acoustic orientation to avoid directing sound toward the historic district or nearby neighborhoods. On funding, he said advocates are prepared to pursue private donations and that the city of Williamsburg will receive the presentation as part of a regional outreach; he emphasized the current board presentation was informational and not a request to authorize construction.

The board did not take action to fund or commit the county; members asked for follow-up information about tax-revenue assumptions, event mixes, and fundraising prospects before considering any decision to proceed to formal funding steps or site-specific approvals.