April 03, 2006
Penguins give "Plan B" the cold shoulder
As promised, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell issued his backup plan for funding a Pittsburgh Penguins arena last week, and it was one that made no one happy. Under Rendell's plan, the annual construction debt payments would be divided up: $7.5 million from the operator of Pittsburgh's slots casino, $7 million from the state, $2.9 million in rent from the Penguins, and $1.2 million from arena naming-rights fees. While the casino operators Isle of Capri have said they'd fund the bulk of arena costs if they win the slots license (that's Plan A), their competitors said they weren't ready to agree to fronting $7.5 million a year toward a hockey arena out of their revenues. The Penguins ownership, meanwhile, balked at the naming-rights fees, which it has hoped to use towards its own rent payments on the new arena. Consider this Exhibit 374 in why "public-private split" is next to meaningless when discussing sports facility financing: Nobody can even agree which side of the ledger gets the credit when the right to slap a corporate name on the building is sold.
