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Cost: $50 million

What it's for: Major renovations to aging War Memorial Auditorium.

Pros: Plans to remake the building are impressive and the facility would stay competitive for popular acts.

Cons: The project is the most expensive single item among all of the bonds. Voters said no in 2006 to auditorium bonds.

Our take: War Memorial Auditorium is one of the most popular public venues in the city.

It also is one of the most tattered, with every minute of its nearly 50-year existence etched into its leaking roof, its cramped foyer, its now-it-works, now-it-doesn't plumbing system, its dingy dressing rooms and its patchy acoustics.

The facility, which is a part of the taxpayer-owned Greensboro Coliseum Complex, is the home concert hall of most Greensboro Symphony concerts.

But it is so much more.

It has hosted comedy shows, plays, Broadway productions, lectures, opera performances, dance recitals, graduations, pageants and student plays.

On Oct. 3, 765 new Americans took their oaths of citizenship there.

At one time or another, the auditorium arguably touches every corner of the community.

Problem is, the building is crumbling and risks deteriorating beyond repair. That could happen in as soon as five years, coliseum officials say.

The auditorium bonds would pay to renovate the inside of the auditorium and much of the facade. The improvements would include acoustic upgrades, elevators, larger restrooms, new seating and better access for disabled patrons. The building has few accommodations for the disabled and only added restrooms for the physically impaired on the main level in the 1990s, converting a changing room for ushers.

At $50 million, the total cost of renovating the facility is hardly small change. And voters said no in 2006 to a $36 million upgrade.

But doing nothing would lessen the city's ability to attract top-shelf acts.

And ultimately it could mean losing the facility altogether.