MOBILE, Ala. — The Mobile City Council on Tuesday approved a nearly $800,000 Regions Arena equipment purchase covering the dishes, glassware, serving pieces and banquet gear the new venue will need when it opens next spring, but only after several members said the request reached them with far too little time to study it.
The order, placed through foodservice supplier TriMark USA, will be paid for out of the roughly $11.8 million the city has already moved into the arena’s furniture, fixtures and equipment budget. City officials told the council the vote could not wait for the usual one-week holdover because the supplier’s price quote expired at the end of September, the day after the meeting.
The council agreed to take up the item immediately and approved it. But the discussion that preceded the vote turned into a broader conversation about how much council members know, and when they know it, about the day-to-day decisions on one of the largest construction projects in the city’s history.
What the city is buying
The purchase order is written for “assorted serving items and equipment.” Documents presented to the council show the order covers the full back-of-house and banquet kit an arena needs to feed and serve crowds, including:
- China plates and coffee cups
- Wine glasses and beer glasses
- Forks, knives and other flatware
- Serving trays
- Food-storage containers
- Dishwashing racks
- Induction warmers
- Portable bars
- Storage racks
- Banquet tables and nesting tables
Much of that list points to the arena’s role beyond concerts and hockey games. Plated china, wine glasses, portable bars and banquet tables are the tools of receptions, galas, corporate events and, eventually, the Mardi Gras balls that were a central part of the case for replacing the old Mobile Civic Center.
James Barber, a senior adviser to Mayor Spiro Cheriogotis, told council members the order is simply part of outfitting the building.
“These are FF&E, or furniture, fixtures and equipment for the arena so that when we do open up, we have to be prepared to do that,” Barber said. “This particular supplier is supplying all of the utensils for it, the plates, the flatware that we need.”
Why the vote could not wait
On large expenditures, the Mobile City Council typically introduces an item one week and votes on it the next. The holdover is meant to give council members time to ask questions and to give the public a chance to see what is being spent and why.
In this case, Barber said, the timing was dictated by the vendor’s quote.
“The quote is only good till the end of this month. So tomorrow is it,” Barber told the council before the vote. “The money’s there. It’s already been allocated. This is just the bid that came in.”
He stressed that the purchase does not represent new spending, but rather the use of money the council had already set aside for arena equipment. Letting the quote lapse, he said, could make the same items more expensive. Barber estimated that a 3% increase on a new quote would add roughly $24,000 to the cost.
‘Put yourself in our shoes’
Councilman Ben Reynolds said he understood the deadline and did not dispute the need for the equipment. But he said the request highlighted a larger problem with the way arena purchases have been reaching the council.
“Put yourself in our shoes — we’re not in the day-to-day discussions with all of these various projects and engineers and project managers,” Reynolds said. “So when we see something on our agenda, a lot of times that’s the first time we know about it or we learn about it.”
Reynolds said the council’s normal holdover process exists for a reason: it gives both council members and residents time to understand what they are approving. He said he expects city leaders to provide more frequent updates on the arena and a clearer look at upcoming purchases before they land on the council’s agenda.
Several other members voiced similar concerns about the short review window before joining in the approval.
Arena ‘on budget and on schedule,’ Barber says
Barber said part of the reason the purchase arrived late in the process is that project managers had recently been focused on a different question: whether the arena could be finished in time to host Mardi Gras events in early 2027.
City leaders ultimately concluded that pushing for a Carnival opening would have delayed the building’s formal opening and events already on the calendar, including the Red Clay Strays’ opening concerts.
“We finally came to the conclusion that if we did do Mardi Gras, it would delay the actual opening,” Barber said. “It’s the first time it’s happened on the arena, but we are on budget and we are on schedule.”
The arena is scheduled to open in March 2027.
How the Mardi Gras decision came about
Mayor Cheriogotis announced on Sept. 11 that Regions Arena would not be ready to host Mardi Gras balls in 2027. When crews broke ground on May 21, 2025, the scheduled completion date was Jan. 15, 2027, only weeks ahead of an early Fat Tuesday on Feb. 9, 2027.
According to the city, the site has logged more than 100 rain days since construction began, including two named tropical storms, pushing anticipated completion into the spring. The mayor said the building could have opened in a very limited capacity for Carnival, but that unfinished interior and exterior work would not give residents the first impression he wanted. He also praised general contractor B.L. Harbert International for its management of the project, saying the delays were not the contractor’s fault.
The mayor met with representatives of nine Mardi Gras organizations before making the announcement public.
A long list of equipment purchases
Tuesday’s order is the latest in a series of individual purchases drawn from the arena’s furniture, fixtures and equipment account, commonly called FF&E in public construction. The city previously established that account at approximately $11.8 million, a pool reserved for the contents of the building rather than the building itself.
The distinction is an important one. A construction contract delivers a structure: foundation, frame, roof, mechanical systems, seating and finishes. It does not deliver the equipment needed to actually run events. Those items, from ice-making gear to trash cans, are typically purchased separately and approved one by one as opening day approaches.
Earlier this month, the council considered $172,114.54 in arena purchases covering two propane-powered Bobcat forklifts and a fleet of industrial cleaning equipment, including floor scrubbers, a rider sweeper, carpet extractors and a restroom-cleaning machine. Purchases approved before that included an ice-resurfacing machine, rolling staging and a basketball floor package.
Foodservice equipment is a natural next step. Arenas generate a large share of their revenue from concessions, premium seating and private events, all of which depend on the ability to store, prepare, keep warm and serve food and drinks for thousands of people at a time.
About the supplier
TriMark USA is a national foodservice equipment and supply dealer that designs and outfits commercial kitchens and supplies dining equipment for restaurants, hotels, schools, health care facilities and entertainment venues. Large public venues commonly buy through dealers of this kind because they can bundle hundreds of individual items, from flatware to warming equipment, into a single order.
A calendar filling up for 2027
Even without Mardi Gras, the arena’s opening months are taking shape:
- March 25–27, 2027: Mobile’s own Red Clay Strays will play three opening concerts, with St. Paul & The Broken Bones as special guest. The city has described the shows as an early activation of the venue ahead of its mid-spring contractual completion.
- April 3, 2027: Comedian Matt Mathews, the first act announced for the arena, will perform two shows that were moved from March 6 after the construction schedule shifted.
- April 24, 2027: The Harlem Globetrotters will bring their Rivalry Tour to the arena.
The building will also be the home of the Mobile Mysticks, the Southern Professional Hockey League’s newest franchise, which revived the name of the city’s former minor-league hockey team when it was unveiled in September. The arena is operated for the city by Oak View Group.
A $300 million project on the Civic Center site
Regions Arena is rising on the footprint of the demolished Mobile Civic Center at 401 Civic Center Drive, on the western edge of downtown. The roughly $300 million, 298,000-square-foot entertainment complex is designed to host concerts, sporting events, family shows, conventions and Mobile’s signature Carnival balls.
The city is also weighing how the surrounding area will function once the arena is open. The council recently introduced an ordinance to extend Entertainment District 1, where patrons may carry alcoholic drinks in designated cups, to include the arena, a proposal that has prompted calls for stricter enforcement of go-cup rules.
What happens next
With the council’s approval, the city can issue the purchase order to TriMark USA before the quote expires, locking in the price for the plates, glassware, bars and banquet furniture.
More arena purchases are likely as the opening approaches, since the FF&E account is meant to cover everything the building needs to operate. Reynolds’ request for more frequent briefings suggests council members will be watching for earlier notice on those items, and for fewer requests that must be approved the same day they are introduced.
Regions Arena at a glance
- Location: 401 Civic Center Drive, Mobile, on the former Mobile Civic Center site
- Size: About 298,000 square feet
- Estimated cost: About $300 million
- General contractor: B.L. Harbert International
- Operator: Oak View Group
- Groundbreaking: May 21, 2025
- Scheduled opening: March 2027
- Equipment budget: About $11.8 million for furniture, fixtures and equipment
- Latest purchase: Nearly $800,000 in dining, serving and banquet equipment from TriMark USA