Pepsi Center owner Stan Kroenke will hand over the arena keys to the Democrats in the summer of 2008 and let the political party do some serious redecorating.

In preparation for the Democratic National Convention, they'll likely yank out lower-level seats, knock down luxury suite walls, haul in massive amounts of steel to reinforce the ceiling, erect a huge building in a parking lot to accommodate the media, and bring in new technology and miles of wire and cable.

Then, once the spectacle is over, the presidential hopeful has left the building and Denver's time in the international spotlight is up, they'll swiftly restore the home of the Denver Nuggets and the Colorado Avalanche to the way it was before.

All in 10 weeks. The estimated cost: at least $15 million.

"It's a monster," said Dave Jolette, the Pepsi Center's vice president and general manager of arena operations.

Talk to John Wentzell, president of Boston's TD Banknorth Garden, and the magnitude of the project comes into focus.

His arena, formerly the FleetCenter, hosted the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

"It is like no other event from a standpoint of time commitment and cost," he said.

The construction expense to the Democrats in 2004 easily surged past the $10 million mark, Wentzell estimated. This time, the price tag should be higher.

"And the irony of it all," he said, "is that there's many, many millions of dollars of construction, all for temporary use."

One benefit to an arena hosting the event - and the corporation paying for naming rights - is exposure. News reports around the world will repeat the Pepsi Center name thousands of times.

Wentzell said the 2004 convention also was a golden opportunity to help the Boston area.

"We were glad to be participants," he said.

There was a down side, however. The convention had a negative financial impact on the Boston facility, he said. Even though summers are typically slow, following the basketball and hockey seasons, the sum the TD Banknorth Garden received based on its contract with the Democrats was not as much as the revenue it would have reeled in otherwise, he said.

Not to mention the fact that tearing the arena apart and rebuilding it is "very taxing on your staff and on your facility," he said. "There's no way of avoiding that. It's extremely demanding."

It may seem early to begin talking about convention arrangements. Officials with the Pepsi Center and the Democratic National Committee emphasized they don't yet have a precise blueprint for arena modifications. A contractor hasn't been picked, and Denver's host committee is concentrating on raising cash.

Organizers seek more than $20 million locally and an additional $10 million or so across the Rocky Mountain region. The entire tab for the convention is estimated at $80 million, with a portion coming from Homeland Security and another chunk from big corporations such as Microsoft that underwrite the events.

The time-consuming process is already in motion, however, and the Pepsi Center can expect to make many changes that the Boston site underwent in 2004.

"The NBA All-Star Game probably was the largest thing we've had, from space to logistics to all the moving parts, and this is 10 times that," Jolette said.

The work will begin in early July 2008 and will finish in mid-September. The convention is set for Aug. 25 to Aug. 28 and could draw 35,000 guests to the region.

The timing is good. Kroenke's Nuggets and Avalanche, as well as his Colorado Mammoth lacrosse club, will have finished their seasons by then.

The construction still will have a disruptive effect. The Pepsi Center will not be able to host any other events, like concerts or religious gatherings, over that span. But Kroenke Sports Enterprises will be able to maintain its offices for hundreds of employees, and its billionaire owner will not have to worry about drilling or dust in his penthouse atop the arena.

The Pepsi Center analyzed how much revenue it usually generates during that period to "make sure we're not losing money" on the convention, Jolette said. He declined to give any figures or reveal the terms of the lease agreement with the Democrats.

To get a sense of what will happen, it's best to look at Boston.

In 2004, they removed half the seats in the Boston arena's lower level so they could build a super stage, with offices below, Wentzell said, and ripped up many of the suites, transforming them into temporary television studios. Extra steel allowed them to hang lighting systems and other equipment that was heavier than what the arena was accustomed to.

At one point, several thousand people were simultaneously working at the Boston venue.

"It was a beehive," he said.

They'll probably need to make the same moves this time.

Workers also will have to alter the arena to provide at least 50 production and staff offices, 20,000 square feet for candidate offices, 5,000 square feet for space used by police, Secret Service and other security, "holding rooms," and makeup and dressing rooms, among other areas, according to a document outlining the Democrats' convention expectations.

A 220,000-square-foot edifice, with everything from air conditioning to carpets, will be set up beside the Pepsi Center to handle the 15,000 media members expected to arrive en masse.

Boston actually had the pricey, multistory structure shipped in from Europe.

Wentzell urged his Denver counterparts to think carefully about catering and security, two issues that proved more challenging than he had anticipated.

As far as labor goes, union crews will be used during the convention. But the head of a union that represented stagehand workers objected to the convention being hosted in the normally nonunion Pepsi Center, a stance that held up Denver's bid for the event. The union said last month it looks forward to settling the issues at the arena.

After the Democrats left the TD Banknorth Garden in 2004, it was hard to tell they'd ever been there. One of the few visible changes was new carpeting, Wentzell said.

Regardless of the assurances, it must be hard for the Pepsi Center stewards to open the doors and let the temporary tenants turn the arena upside down.

"Is there concern?" asked the Pepsi Center's Jolette, who'll go to Boston soon to get information that will help him oversee the '08 effort. "You bet. You build for several weeks, then in two weeks, you put it back to normal? There should be a little worry, but that's part of the game."

patonj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2544

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