The Cross Insurance Arena in Portland won’t lose its “local flavor” if an outside management company is brought in to run the newly renovated facility, the chairman of the arena’s board of trustees said Friday.

The trustees announced Friday that they expect to start negotiations soon with Global Spectrum, based in Philadelphia, to manage the facility, which formerly was known as the Cumberland County Civic Center and reopened in January after a nearly $35 million renovation. Trustees also interviewed officials with SMG, another facility management firm, before deciding to move ahead with Global Spectrum, a subsidiary of Comcast, the cable television giant.

Neal Pratt, chairman of the arena’s trustees, said he expects to complete a draft contract with Global Spectrum in time to take it to the board for approval next month. The goal, he said, is to have Global Spectrum running things in early 2015.

The trustees decided this summer to seek an outside management firm to take over operations of the facility, from booking acts and overseeing concession operations to negotiating leases with the Portland Pirates, a hockey team that is the arena’s lead tenant.

The former general manager of the facility, Steve Crane, retired this summer, but the trustees had been considering contracting out management since the renovation process began three years ago.

Pratt said the trustees have told Global Spectrum that they would like the company to hire some of the arena’s current employees when the firm takes over.

He said Global Spectrum also was told that local events, such as college graduations, open skating periods and other community activities, will continue to be held at the arena and the trustees are retaining veto power over the company’s choice of a general manager for the center.

“This is a community facility and we’re not going to lose that,” Pratt said.

Global Spectrum manages more than 100 facilities around the country, including the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor. That gives the firm bargaining power with promoters, Pratt said, by being able to line up shows in multiple arenas in a region.

Global Spectrum manages several arenas in New England, including centers in Springfield and Lowell, Massachusetts.