BANGOR – A much anticipated report released Monday finds that the city should think big – or at least a little bigger – when replacing its aging auditorium.

The draft market study, presented Monday evening by representatives of the Minneapolis, Minn.-based Convention Sports & Leisure International, validated the need for a new arena in the city, according to some key city officials.

“It gives me enough concrete evidence that this is something we should pursue, and that there is a brighter future for the right facility in Bangor,” said Mayor Michael Crowley, who upon the report’s release announced that within two weeks he would appoint a panel charged with finding a way to pay for a new facility.

“We really need to get serious,” he said.

In the last two years, city officials have stepped up their pursuit of a replacement for the Bangor Auditorium and Civic Center, which one consultant recently called the “second-worst facility in the country.”

Backers of a new arena have had little luck in securing money for the project, estimates for which hover at $30 million. They say oppressive maintenance costs and lack of modern amenities at the existing auditorium – built in 1955 for $1.4 million – have limited the number and nature of events there.

The CS&L analysis concluded that the city could support an arena of up to 7,500 seats, a 25 percent increase from the existing facility at Bass Park.

A new complex would pump between $21 million and $28 million into the local economy each year, the report states, but would operate at a loss of between $68,000 and $279,000 depending on how much the facility is used.

For comparison, last year the Bass Park complex ran a deficit of $295,000 – typical of similar-sized arenas, according to CS&L representatives.

Some councilors were unfazed by the projected losses.

“It’s a small amount of loss compared to the economic stimulation,” said City Councilor David Nealley, noting that the city subsidizes the Bangor Public Library at about $1 million annually.

For comparison, in the past 10 years, the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland has lost money – as much as $97,000 – five times and turned a profit – as high as $173,000 – five times.

While Portland has the financial advantage of being home to a professional hockey team, the report found that, based on league interest, a new Bangor facility was more likely to play host to minor league arena football, a relatively new league with 34 teams throughout the country.

The release of the CS&L market analysis, part of a $100,000 study of a new auditorium and civic center, marked the start of two days of meetings in which city leaders will consider a location for a new building.

As a second step in the study, HOK Associates, a Kansas City, Mo.-based architecture firm, will release a preliminary design for a new arena next month.

Bangor was the smallest of the seven comparable metropolitan areas in the CS&L study, which focused on cities where new arenas had been built during the past decade.

What Bangor lacked in population, it made up in how much area residents spend on entertainment relative to their income, city officials noted. Bangor ranked second behind Green Bay, Wis., in that category.

And despite its relatively small population, Bangor has proven it can draw a crowd, Crowley said before the meeting.

“One needs to look no further than the Bangor State Fair or the National Folk Festival to see that,” he said, noting the latter event drew about 80,000 people to the city over three days.