UPDATE: Transition Of Banquet Services At The Arvada Center

ARVADA, CO—Arvada city officials said Friday that they continue to work to transfer all operations within the Arvada Center building to the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities nonprofit organization.

It's work that now must be accelerated due to impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, they said.

Until early 2020, officials said the city team was able to meet milestones of an Oct. 2019 agreement that was to fully transfer control of all banquet facilities and the provision of food, beverage and retail concessions from the city to the Arvada Center non-profit by July 1, 2021.

However, in March, the city’s operations began to be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which also forced the suspension of services at the Arvada Center and have required the city to re-evaluate the timeline for concluding its operation of hospitality services at the Arvada Center.

City council has directed the city team to entirely transition control of the banquet facilities to the Arvada Center by early Fall, to partially mitigate the financial impacts of the pandemic.

The next steps in the accelerated transition process include providing input on the Arvada Center’s business plan for providing hospitality services, supporting the transition of future customers to the Arvada Center, and transitioning certain equipment and materials from the Arvada Center to other city facilities.

On Oct. 21, 2019, the Arvada City Council approved a resolution amending the city’s cooperative agreement with the nonprofit Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities in order to authorize the transfer of all operations within the Arvada Center building to the nonprofit organization. The amendment stated that all operations within the Arvada Center, including scheduling, catering and otherwise managing all aspects of events will transfer from the City to the non-profit by no later than July 1, 2021.

Officials said the transition remains a next step in the city’s ongoing commitment to support the Arvada Center’s mission as a regional arts and humanities facility, and the decision is consistent with a 2012 study and the 2015 cooperative agreement that both recognized that the Arvada Center can more effectively achieve its mission as a separate nonprofit organization.

The banquet facilities, which are currently operated by the city as part of Arvada Events, have supported a variety of special events and other group functions since 1992 within the Arvada Center building.

The Arvada events team has served over 1.4 million guests for conferences, meetings, weddings and social events. The city will continue to own and provide maintenance support to the facility and grounds.