May 11, 2008
Weekend update: Spurs win more arena cash, OKC threatens Sonics suit
A few items of note from the last couple of days:
- Voters in San Antonio approved by a 57%-43% margin Saturday an extension of hotel and car-rental taxes that will provide the Spurs with an estimated $75 million for upgrades to their six-year-old, publicly built arena. Guess that half a million bucks in campaign spending was worth it.
- So former Seattle Sonics owner (and Starbucks baron) Howard Schultz is suing to get the team back, eh? Well, now Oklahoma City officials say they'll sue him right back if he buys the team and doesn't move it to their city. In a letter to Schultz's attorney on Thursday, the city's attorney wrote that he expects any owner of the Sonics to honor the "contractual obligation to relocate to Oklahoma City and to play home games at the Ford Center for the duration of the term of the lease." Or maybe they could just have the lawyers meet at midcourt and make closing arguments - it'd be more entertaining than watching the Sonics.
- The NBA and Sacramento's Cal Expo announced Friday that they're officially reopening negotiations for a Kings basketball arena to be built on the state fairgrounds as part of a $650 million development. Writes Sacramento Bee columnist Marcos Breton in an otherwise upbeat article: :Even if passed, the document will not be legally binding. And it does not address the biggest obstacle: How do you pay for an arena without a new tax?" Excellent question.
- The city of Santa Clara now says it doesn't need Great America's approval to build a 49ers football stadium on the amusement park's parking lot, so long as it replaces the parking elsewhere, according to the terms of the lease for the city-owned land. (Great America's owners didn't immediately challenge this interpretation; read into that what you may.) That would require a new parking garage, though, adding to the project's existing $51 million budget hole.
- Buried in a long New York Times article on the coming demolition of Tiger Stadium (which, incidentally, misrepresents the Tiger Stadium Fan Club's 1990s "hugs" of the structure to protest plans for a new park as being by "a booster club") is news that U.S. Senator Carl Levin says he'll seek federal funding to help preserve a section of the 96-year-old ballpark if the Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy is able to raise $369,000 toward that goal by its June 1 deadline. I'd direct you where to send donations if you have $369,000 under your sofa cushions, but the Conservancy still hasn't managed to get its website up and running. (Hint: You can get them for free these days.)
It'll be interesting to see what kind of proposal they make for Sacramento, but when the strong proponents of the plan (if you can call it a plan at this point) admit they're simply taking a shot at it, I think you're already in trouble.
Given the way the State of California moves, plus the mortgage crisis, plus the general downturn in real estate, plus the fact that they're now going to look for a developer willing to do it with private money, I can't image them having a new arena before 2016. That would be extremely optimistic.
It wouldn't be part of Phase I; that's the biggest problem right there. A developer isn't going to build an arena and THEN build the other parts to finance the arena. No way. Far, far too risky. They'll build the "other stuff" first, and THEN build the arena IF the "other stuff" is working out. They're not going to risk losing hundreds of millions of dollars just because an NBA team owner wants an arena within 2-3 years.
There is one option: Loans from the City (the State will not play here!) to fund the arena first, just to tide over the developer while the "other stuff" goes up. That would require a 2/3 vote, and passing that would next-to impossible.
I think this half-baked idea has a very long way to go.
Posted by MikeM on May 12, 2008 05:27 PM
