January 22, 2008
Hartford mayor begins arena push
Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez is pushing for a new arena to replace the Hartford Civic Center, and you can just hear the excitement:
"It's the first step in a long process," said Mark McGovern, the city's acting director of development services. "In making that first step, we've had experts tell us that it's not out of the question that we would be able to site, fund and operate an arena."
Why the city would want to build a new arena, which is estimated would cost between $300 million and $400 million, when it doesn't have a team to play in it was left unstated - but then, the mandate of the mayor's study wasn't whether a new arena was a good idea, but rather whether it was doable. A panel of experts from the Urban Land Institute recently recommended against building a new arena as a waste of city resources - but Mayor Perez isn't about to let a bunch of experts stand between him and his dream.
If I recall the Hartford Whalers had the highest percentage of season ticket holders in a 50-mile radius of any NHL team when they left town. The problem is the population in that radius isn't particularly high and beyond that radius is Boston to the NE and NYC to the SW. In short, Hartford is a minor-league town.
I'd be curious to know if the state has seen any return on the $91 million dollars they spent building Rentschler Field (football field on former Pratt & Whitney airfield) in East Hartford. It opened in '03 - is the economic impact from the stadium close to paying for the cost of the stadium?
Posted by joejoejoe on January 23, 2008 05:42 AM
As a Rangers supporter, I miss the Hartford Whalers as much as anyone. Hartford had great natural rivals with both the Atlantic and Northeast Divisions. Guess we'll see how this plays out.
Posted by Mark from NYC on January 23, 2008 11:34 PM
The revenues are a bit sketchy, the Capitol City Development Auth spells out who gets what
http://www.cceda.state.ct.us/rentschler/rent_FAQ.htm
What is not so clear is how they got at some of these numbers - 600 event-day jobs "created" sounds a bit on the optimistic side. But since the prime tenant is UConn football, I suppose there is some sort of public use of the facility, in that UConn is not a private corporate tenant, such as an NFL team.
Posted by Jonathan on January 24, 2008 03:01 PM
Thanks Jonathan!
Posted by joejoejoe on January 27, 2008 07:36 AM
AEG currently manages Rentschler Field. It was previously managed by MSG.
I knew one of the managers at Rentschler. To use the stadium is quite pricey. Just about every service, from parking to concessions, is subcontracted out. A lot of money is being made at that stadium.
Any "benefits" from a new arena would most likely be canceled out by closing the Civic Center. There are some wealthy people and companies in the Connecticut River Valley; if they want a new arena and a NHL team maybe they should look into financing it themselves.
Posted by Mike on February 2, 2008 11:28 PM