Tag: Arena

City Council in preliminary vote on parking lease tonight

On the agenda for tonight’s City Council meeting is a motion to select 10 of the 13 bidders who sent in responses in pursuit of the City’s proposed plan to lease parking operations rights to raise money for a new arena. It’s at the bottom of the agenda, and it’s a purely procedural item but if recent meetings are any indication, folks will most likely show up for the Public Comment ready to talk.

If you want to follow along, you should be able to tune to Channel 15 or stream it live. But I also recommend following a few folks on Twitter who will most likely be discussing/snarking on the proceedings. Not just professional journos like The Bee’s Ryan Lillis (@ryan_lillis) and SN&R’s Nick Miller (@NickMillerSNR) and sports folks like Carmichael Dave (@CarmichaelDave), but also normals like Michael Minnick (@SacraMINNICK), Kevin Fippin (@kfippin) and our old blogger pal Maya (don’t call her Mia) Wallace (@mayagirl) from Postcards from Sacramento.

Parking lease proposal stinks?

Sheedy, literally asking the speaker to define "monetize"

The more I think about the current proposal to lease the City’s parking operations to fund a big upfront payment on the arena, the worse the idea sounds. I guess you could say I’m approaching Heckasac levels of frustration with the idea.

Last week Cosmo Garvin highlighted the numbers in the initial report on the parking proposal, and it’s pretty obvious that the City would be giving away half a billion dollars of future parking revenue for the prospect of getting half that up front. As Garvin points out, the high-end figure of $245 million is probably not realistic. And even that number means giving up $205 million–5 times the City’s budget deficit. Councilwoman Sheedy said as much during the Tuesday night meeting, citing Chicago, “The Big Windy Apple” as they call it, as a large city that sold some of its parking interests. Continue reading “Parking lease proposal stinks?”

Think Big not thinking about the little people?

from thinkbigsacramento.com

Not too proud about that headline. Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy’s poll about the use of City funds to bankroll the new arena showed overwhelming public support for going to the ballot box, the Bee reports today. However, Think Big Sacramento, the Mayor’s initiative aimed at making the arena happen, calls the poll suspicious. Apparently they have their own poll that contradicts Sheedy’s:

Chris Lehane, head of the mayor’s Think Big Sacramento commission, pointed to a poll his group commissioned in August that found majority support for selling some city land, and for leasing city parking garages as part of a potential financing plan.

Supporting putting it to a vote and supporting some of those uses don’t seem to be diametrically opposed, but I’d have to see the questions on both polls. The Bee doesn’t supply those.

Continue reading “Think Big not thinking about the little people?”

What is biggest risk in Arena deal?

This week will see Mayor Johnson’s financing plan for the downtown arena, which Johnson calls “the city’s greatest economic opportunity since the building of the Transcontinental Railroad.”

At least in the Bee report, the Maloofs seem cautiously optimistic and willing to play ball, though they do want to see a solid plan:

Maloof said he is holding the city to the March 1 deadline. “They’ve got to deliver. Everything has to be in place, ironclad. No risk. No ifs.”

No risks? Sure, sure, sounds like a plan. For example you wouldn’t want to take on a risk that your major tenant can’t make rent payments, right?

Maloof has said the Kings only want to be tenants, not operators, of the new arena, and warned the team doesn’t have much money for rent payments.

Not sure how Maloof expects the City to handle the risk of Maloof not being able to make rent.

I would personally hate to lose an NBA franchise–and though I have been critical of the Maloofs in the past, I guess it is pretty standard to be completely beholden to the team even when their commitment is in question. It is just business, after all.

Do or die week for Kings?

Mayor Johnson is still sounding optimistic about keeping the Kings in town and apparently March 1 is the deadline for the Kings to file a relocation request. Notes from Bill Bradley and Voisin (interesting note about Stern’s Sacramento-is-Seattle reference) and Sam Amick are worrisome, while Ryan Lillis and the Here We Stay folks provide optimism on the subject.

If this goes the wrong way and we lose the team, will I regret agitating against raising taxes to pay for a shady deal to build the railyard arena? I spent some time this morning rereading some of my posts from that period of time and I maintain my stance. I am aware that Oklahoma City is somewhat of a success story, with the city now owning Ford Arena. I’m not 100% sure that there wouldn’t have been some kind of deal involving a tax increase in return for city ownership of the arena that I couldn’t have supported. But the amount of concessions Sacramento City and County leaders were willing to give the Maloofs made the 2006 deal a bad one for citizens, IMHO. And if we had known this situation would be a direct result it would have made that deal even more distasteful.

Surely you don’t lack for places on the Internet to answer this question but what do you think? How do you see this thing playing out?

Advisory committee for Entertainment & Sports Complex issue

Councilman Steve Cohn announces today via e-mail:

The Sacramento FIRST Task Force is reviewing seven new proposals for an Entertainment & Sports Complex. The Task Force is also looking at the current Cal Expo proposal and the option of renovating Arco Arena.

The Task Force is forming an Advisory Committee of interested citizens that will supplement the task force. If you are interested in volunteering to serve on this advisory committee, please let me know by sending an email message to my District Director, Sue Brown, at sbrown@cityofsacramento.org by Friday, January 8, 2010. Our understanding is that the commitment of time is approximately one meeting per month for about 3 months.

I don’t think anyone would disagree that this city needs the Sac Rag readership’s input in this project…

City wins $20 million stimulus for Railyard move

Next Stop Hogwarts
Creative Commons License photo credit: Brave Heart

The City announced on Friday that it had met a December 1 deadline to get shovel-ready on the project to move and realign the tracks at Sacramento Valley Station.

I trust that even though they were “scrambling” to get it done, Kevin McCarty and the other city council members made sure to scrutinize the environmental and logistical work before proceeding with requesting taxpayer money to fund the project on behalf of Thomas Enterprises. Or is it only important to scrutinize when a private company wants to spend its own money?

Continue reading “City wins $20 million stimulus for Railyard move”

City touts “win” in Railyards environmental case

Tresspassing
Creative Commons License photo credit: ThinkingStiff

The City of Sacramento and Thomas Enterprises are proudly bragging of a “win” in the suit against them brought by the Downtown Plaza and three individuals who challenged the environmental impact reports prepared for the Railyards site. The Sacramento Superior Court today ruled that the City and Thomas Enterprises complied with the law under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

Bold new arena finance plan: Charge people for seats

Arco Arena
Creative Commons License photo credit: Bo Knows California

The city’s groundbreaking new idea for financing a replacement for Arco Arena is to charge fans for their attendance, as this Sac Bee article explains. I’m kidding, though I’m not quite sure how $40,000 over 40 years, paid as $1000 per year ($24 per game) is different than a $24 season ticket (and $24 at the current Arco location basically gets you a parking space). If it had to be paid upfront I could understand.

Also, I’m not sure why anybody would pay for a seat at an arena over 40 or 50 years; after all, Arco has been marked for replacement for almost a decade. There must be something to this seat mortgage idea that I just don’t understand. It would be the first time I have ever, ever blogged about something without complete understanding of the issue, so you know I’m being truthful. 🙂

Railyards Project featured in NYT

Today’s New York Times Real Estate section features a story on the Railyards development. It is interesting to read about it from an out-of-towner’s point of view. We locals seem to be wrapped up in the details of making it happen, such as the toxic clean-up, the I-5 expansion, transit issues, the stadium controversy, and more. I think we forget the immensity of the project (one of the largest proposed urban expansions in the nation) and the history behind the land. Enjoy.