The North Shore Connector could be a gravy train for the Port Authority of Allegheny County before it's even completed.
Port Authority CEO Steve Bland said the agency is looking into selling the naming rights to the 1.2-mile light-rail link between Downtown and the North Shore.
If the agency is successful, the deal could recoup part -- maybe all -- of the $12.7 million the county has allocated to the project.
The $435 million project calls for twin tunnels to be dug under the Allegheny River to extend the T system. The federal government is paying $348 million and the state $72.5 million.
"The first goal is assessing if there's a market for it," Bland said of selling the rights. "Whether there's a market for it or not, we don't know that yet."
Myles Gallagher does.
Last week, Gallagher, president of the Cleveland-based Superlative Group, secured a deal for the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority. Under the agreement, the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals will pay RTA $11 million over 25 years to name a new nine-mile bus route through the heart of the city. They're calling it the HealthLine.
A similar deal, even on a smaller scale, couldn't hurt the cash-strapped Port Authority, which was forced to cut numerous bus routes last year and raise fares in January, said Kevin Evanto, spokesman for Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato.
"Why wouldn't you look at this?" Evanto said. "The Port Authority ought to look at all sources of creating ways to raise revenues."
Still, Bland is proceeding cautiously with finding a suitor.
"We haven't put a super sense of urgency (on it), because we're still three years from opening," he said. "The worse thing that could happen is ... you undervalue it."
Neither Bland nor Gallagher said they could estimate how much the naming rights might command without more research.
But the market certainly exists, said Hamp Howell III, president of Sports Facilities Marketing Group in Cleveland.
"We have done it for convention centers and other nonsports venues," he said. "You really have to look at the naming right sponsor to see what they hope to achieve."
Municipal marketing can be a difficult sell, Howell said.
"It isn't sexy to have your name on a tunnel," he said. "But if you're the naming-rights partner on a sports venue, you're the senior partner on that team.
"When you shift over to a public-works project, if you will, it's a little different. But there are times it can match up and make sense. ... There's usually a buyer out there."
Selling the naming rights to existing structures can be difficult, because the public already has grown accustomed to the names.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority learned that the hard way earlier this decade when it tried selling the rights to subway stations in Boston.
"The Fort Pitt Tunnel has a value, but it's probably not worth pursuing," Gallagher said. "Your Port Authority has the opportunity to do it (with the North Shore Connector).
"In the private sector, you see these deals all the time. You're going to see these deals in the public sector in the future."
Name your price
Public- or government-owned projects have been the subject of naming-rights discussions before.
• The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority explored selling the rights to four historic subway stations, but the effort failed.
• Tampa Electric Co. bought the naming rights for a streetcar line in Tampa for $1 million in 2002. The 10-year deal means the route will be known as the TECO Line Streetcar System.
• In 2003, Nextel Communications agreed to pay $50 million over 12 years to sponsor a train and the convention center station on the Las Vegas Monorail system. Other companies also have entered into deals with the monorail.
• New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority has considered selling naming rights to subway stations, bus lines, bridges and tunnels since 2004.
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