Towns share Qwest Center cash

BANCROFT, Neb. — It isn't Paul McCartney, Berkshire Hathaway or Creighton basketball.

But when the Pop Machine Band holds its New Year's Eve show here, it will uncork another milestone at the Bancroft Community Building.

The venue has held Big Red and Super Bowl parties, wedding rehearsals and community potlucks to celebrate high school state championships. Travelers stranded during snowstorms are put up with pillows and blankets. The facility is booked for graduation parties through 2018.

Visitors to Omaha's Qwest Center and adjacent Hilton Omaha hotel can share in the credit for what's happening at the Bancroft hall and similar venues across the state.

Every time someone spends a dollar at Qwest Center Omaha, a few pennies eventually roll across Nebraska — nearly 300 million of them so far — to benefit local civic, cultural and convention centers. That's nearly $3 million since 2004.

When a McCartney concertgoer buys a T-shirt, a Berkshire stockholder lines up for See's Candies or a Creighton fan buys a bratwurst and beer, the state sales tax paid is set aside in a so-called turnback fund. Seventy percent comes back to the City of Omaha to help pay off the Qwest Center debt and promote tourism in north and south Omaha.

The remaining 30 percent goes for grants to venues across Nebraska, such as paying for a new roof and other improvements to Community Building in Bancroft, a town of 520 in the state's northeast.

In good times and bad, these mini-Qwest Centers help attract people to communities and enhance the local quality of life, said J.L. Schmidt, executive director of Lincoln-based Heritage Nebraska.

The turnback fund has helped 28 towns renovate or build facilities that are important to their well-being, Schmidt said. The facilities are the glue that holds many towns together.

“We try to help people create a sense of place,'' said Schmidt, an advocate for the fund.

“After 9/11, people were sticking closer together and rallying around the things they had. That's why these community buildings are so important. It's the benefit soup supper, the Christmas program, the wedding reception — the very real pieces of our lives.''

Schmidt said the Arnold Community Center is as important to the 630 people in that Sand Hills town as the Qwest Center is to the 838,000 in the Omaha-Council Bluffs metropolitan area.

“They may never get KISS, college basketball or ice hockey in Arnold, but those people are every bit as proud of that building as are folks in Omaha with the Qwest Center,'' he said.

State Sen. Brad Ashford of Omaha helped fashion the original turnback tax law a decade ago after visiting communities across the state.

“People had such pride in their towns and their community buildings, but they were too expensive to make improvements,'' he said. “They needed help.''

Ashford said the initial idea always was to include assisting other Nebraska towns with their community centers along with helping the Qwest Center pay its debts.

“It means a lot that my colleagues in the Legislature from Omaha and the rest of the state are tied together through this 30 percent fund,'' he said.

“It was a real effort to capture the spirit of what made Nebraska Nebraska. I hope it never goes away. It's important for these communities to keep their facilities going.''

Ashford hopes to tweak the turnback law next year to make it easier for towns and counties to participate. He also wants to broaden the fund's reach and allow for rehabilitating historic buildings.

More than $2.94 million has been awarded since the program's first grant in 2004 to Grand Island's Heartland Events Center, which will be the centerpiece of the State Fair when it moves from Lincoln next year. Grants match locally raised funds.

The new $800,000 Humphrey Community Building in Platte County was built with no borrowed money. It has hosted nearly 80 events since its hurry-up opening in April.

“We were putting wax on the floor to get out of the way of the Humphrey St. Francis prom,'' said Damon Vogt, facility manager.

The upscale steel building would hold the entire population of the town of 800 with room to spare. The center hosts City Council and community club meetings, exercise classes and senior citizen meals.

“People are proud of what we have here. That grant money was a huge part of making it happen,'' Vogt said.

The grants are an effective way of creating opportunities to attract people to communities across Nebraska, said John Schmitz, Fremont's parks and recreation director.

Fremont received a grant this year to help build a band shell for hosting orchestras, choirs, Shakespeare plays and other outdoor shows in a park near downtown.

The 16-year-old Gering Civic Center in western Nebraska is in the final weeks of a $400,000 face-lift thanks to a turnback grant. The facility hosts regional service clubs and state banker, teacher, water and agriculture conferences.

Expanded seating will allow the facility to host more than 1,000 people at certain functions — and bid for more and larger conferences and meetings, said Karla Niedan-Streeks, marketing director.

That's good for all Nebraskans, she said.

“What this sales tax turnback program does is give us an opportunity to bridge the gap that sometimes exists between eastern and western Nebraska,'' Niedan-Streeks said.

“The Qwest Center in Omaha brings so much recognition to Nebraska with the events it attracts,'' she said. “Everybody benefits when people come and have a tremendous experience in our state. We're all reaping the rewards.''

Contact the writer:

444-1127, david.hendee@owh.com

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