Will PaeTec bail out?

The
city is committed. The state — following a tumultuous week where it looked
like things might fall apart — is committed. The Rhinos, certainly, are
committed to getting a soccer-specific stadium built in Rochester.

            So is the team still feeling the
love from its stadium’s namesake, PaeTec Communications?

            The Perinton-based
telecommunications company purchased the naming rights to the future stadium
for a reported $12.8 million over a 22- to 30- year period. The money,
according to Rhinos CEO Steve Donner, kicks in the first operational year of
the stadium. PaeTec will pay an annual installment, Donner says, on a graduated
scale.

            PaeTec Park is set to be built in
the city’s Brown Square neighborhood, a short distance from Frontier Field.

            The Rhinos have gotten no money from
PaeTec thus far, and some are wondering — given the state of the economy, the
way stadium plans have changed over the years, and the upheaval surrounding the
project — whether PaeTec might opt out of the deal, or at least scale back
its commitment.

            “I hear that they might not be
solid, but I have no proof,” says state Assemblyman David Gantt (D-Rochester).
“Things went downhill in the economy and I think they might have gotten hurt by
that. But I don’t know. I need to make that clear.”

            PaeTec CEO Arunas Chesonis declined
comment on this story.

            Gantt — whose reservations about
the stadium project nearly cost the project its state funding — says he is
now satisfied that taxpayers are not going to be on the hook for the $22
million PaeTec Park. In a press conference Thursday night, Rochester Mayor Bill
Johnson said he has assured Gantt that the Rhinos will not ask for any
additional public funding beyond the $15 million state grant secured in 2000.

            “The taxpayers of the city and state
will have to put no more dollars into the deal. None. Zero,” Gantt says. “The
taxpayers are protected.”

            The deal for the naming rights to
the park, according to The Bonham Group — a national sports and entertainment
marketing firm based in Denver, Colorado — was in the top 10 minor league
facility naming rights deals in the country, by dollar amount, as of June.

            Despite that, Johnson says that if
PaeTec were to pull out of the project, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.
The company’s $12.8 million will be spread out over many years, Johnson says,
and the little the Rhinos get annually shouldn’t jeopardize the project. “I
don’t see that amount of money throwing the deal off. It’s not critical, in my
mind.”

            Johnson assumes that the Rhinos have
a strategy in the event PaeTec pulls out. “It seems to me that there’d be other
people willing to step in.”

            But as far as he knows, the deal
with PaeTec is solid, Johnson says.

            “I’ve asked him [Rhinos president
Frank DuRoss] and he indicated that everything seems to be good at this point
in time. They continue to call it ‘PaeTec Park.'”

            DuRoss did not return repeated calls
for comment.

            Everything PaeTec has said to the
Rhinos and in the press indicates they’re still on board, Donner says.

            “They just reaffirmed their
commitment in the Rochester Business
Journal,” he says. “I gotta go by their word.”

            In the August 29 RBJ, reporter Alexander Soule writes
“Arunas Chesonis, chairman and CEO of PaeTec, said his company is sticking by
its naming rights agreement for PaeTec Park.”

            Soule does not quote Chesonis
directly.

            In the same article, Soule writes,
“PaeTec pegged its total commitment to the stadium at $12.8 million, and stated
that its commitment was transferable with the consent of PaeTec Park’s
organizers.”

            Donner is hopeful a stadium
groundbreaking will take place later this month or early October.

This article appears in Sep 24-30, 2003.