August 04, 2011
Sorry, Islanders: Brooklyn Nets arena still too small for hockey
Now that the New York Islanders aren't getting a new arena in Nassau — not this week, anyway — there's much talk about whether they could instead share digs with the Nets at the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Forbes blogger Tom Van Riper calls a Brooklyn move "the most cost efficient way for the franchise to move on," while the Brooklyn Paper, with its characteristic reserve, shouts, "GAME CHANGER! Professional hockey could be coming to Brooklyn."
The only problem, as sharp-eyed FoS readers will remember (or as even dull-eyed Village Voice readers will, since I just wrote about it there on Tuesday): In order to save money, Brooklyn arena builder Bruce Ratner "value engineered" the Barclays Center to have a floor too small for hockey, essentially requiring that thousands of seats be ripped out to make room for a playing surface twice the length of a basketball court.
The Brooklyn Paper's headline was based on the same canned statement by Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark as I cited in my Voice piece, which went like this in its entirety:
"The Barclays Center will have an ice rink that can support professional hockey. Due to the venue's design, the capacity for hockey would be a few thousand seats less than for basketball. While we hope to explore hockey opportunities in the future, our primary focus at the moment is to build the best sports and entertainment venue in the world."
The Brooklyn Paper pegs the number of seats lost at 3,500 (no source given), which would give the arena the smallest capacity in the NHL. More to the point, as I noted in the Voice (thanks in part to a tip from an FoS reader), squeezing an NHL rink into a structure built for basketball could create some seriously ugly sightlines, as happened when the Phoenix Coyotes tried a similar scheme at America West Arena a bunch of years back.
Add in that the Islanders would be tenants of the Nets at the arena, and would probably be expected to pay rent (they'd be taking up nights that could otherwise be used for Lady Gaga shows and the like, after all), and it starts sounding like a less tempting opportunity. (Though at least the Isles wouldn't have to pay a territorial rights fee to the Rangers — they already covered that back in the 1970s.)
So: Brooklyn Islanders, possible? Yes. Likely? Unless both Charles Wang and the NHL decide that the Brooklyn market is so lucrative that it's worth playing in a substandard arena, don't hold your breath.
August 02, 2011
Nassau County voters kill Islanders arena plan
The votes are in — 62 percent of them, anyway, as of around midnight — and it looks like the New York Islanders' $400 million arena plan has gone down to a decisive defeat. With about 15% of registered Nassau County voters turning out at the polls, 58% of those voting opposed the plan to hike property taxes by as much as 4% to pay for the new building.
What happens now is anyone's guess. Islanders owner Charles Wang has said he'd move the team if the arena vote failed, but owners have said that before (cf. Carl Pohlad after the Twins referendum lost in 1996), and his list of relocation options isn't all that great. Kansas City isn't going to offer a sweetheart lease to a sports team and neither is Quebec, Hamilton has that Balsillie problem, which leaves ... Houston? It's tough to see abandoning the nation's largest market, with a proven hockey fan base, for a Sunbelt city that hasn't had a major-league hockey team in 33 years, especially after all that mess in Phoenix. There's always that talk of a hockey arena in Queens, but that has nothing in the way of a funding plan, and would give New York City three arenas competing for concerts (and the metro area six arenas, at least until the Meadowlands and the Nassau Coliseum were torn down), which is a heck of a lot, even for an urban area with 20 million people.
After the vote, Wang said only: "I have to tell you I'm disappointed and to put it very bluntly, I'm heartbroken. I have to tell you it's a very emotional day for us." He added: "We're committed to the Nassau Coliseum until 2015. We will honor our lease."
Before the vote yesterday, Wang had been more defiant, proclaiming, "We don't have a place to play anymore, because come 2015, our lease expires. ... We have to have a place to play, so we're out of options basically." Given that the last time anybody tried that gambit was seven years ago, and everyone just laughed at them — as anyone who's rented an apartment knows, the thing about leases is after one expires you typically get another one — Wang isn't exactly sounding like a man with a solid Plan B. It's going to be very interesting to see what his next move is, once he gets over his heartbreak.
August 01, 2011
As Islanders vote looms, finance board remains wild card
It's New York Islanders arena vote day in Nassau County, and ... there really isn't much to be added to what's been said already. Still, papers have gotta be published, so there's plenty of ink spilled today on the plan:
- The Times has a long article that will be of interest to anyone who knows absolutely nothing about the arena deal and needs a primer. Key quote: "'It's a Catch-22,' [retired Nassau resident Bob Orosz] said. 'If it's passed, our taxes are going to go up. If it fails, our taxes are going to go up.'"
- The Daily News has another editorial dissing the plan, its second in two weeks, which seems like a lot for a project that doesn't even affect most of the News' readers. Key quote: "Voters who care about fiscal sanity should go to the polls - and terminate the plan with extreme prejudice."
- Newsday runs down the basics of the plan and what happens next. Key quote: "If the referendum is approved, it would next go before the 19-member Nassau County Legislature which would require a supermajority of 13 members, including at least two Democrats, to guarantee passage. NIFA also must approve the lease agreement and bonding."
- The Wall Street Journal runs down the basics of the vote as well, with an extra helping of quotes from arena opponents. Key quote: "William Biamonte, the Democratic Commissioner of the Nassau Board of Elections, said voter turnout would likely be less than 10%, compared with up to 70% for a presidential election. 'Whatever the result, we won't be able to read any type of public intent from it,' Mr. Biamonte said."
- One of the more in-depth articles on the Islanders plan, weirdly, is in the Montreal Gazette, where columnist Pat Hickey crunches the numbers and finds them wanting. Key quote: "The Islanders have tried to make the picture rosier by projecting $229 million in annual revenue for the new building. ... Consider these numbers: If the Islanders, who had the lowest attendance in the league last season at 11,059 per game, sell out all 41 games in a 17,500-seat arena with an average ticket price of $65 — which would be among the highest in the NHL — and every fan spent another $50 a game on beer, hotdogs and souvenirs, the total revenue would be a mere $82 million. It would take a lot of concerts and other events to make up the difference in the Islanders' projections."
The last poll, taken in mid-July, found that registered Nassau County voters opposed the plan, 51-36% — but as Biamonte noted, turnout is expected to be so low that this will be more a referendum on who's motivated to go to the polls than on what county voters actually think.
The more interesting wild card could be NIFA, which was appointed to oversee the near-bankrupt county's finances last winter, and which has already said it will take a hard look at the arena numbers before approving any deal. NIFA already rejected the county's overall budget last month, so clearly it's not afraid to make some tough calls. So however the vote goes today, the Islanders saga is far from over.
July 25, 2011
Daily News says Islanders arena plan too risky
With one week to go before the New York Islanders arena referendum, the New York Daily News has entered the debate, with an editorial this morning saying "the deal would be a bonanza for team owner Charles Wang while saddling taxpayers with huge risks." Most of the arguments (the county would be risking public money with no guarantee of getting repaid, sales tax receipts would be partly cannibalized from existing county money) are pretty much dead on point, though the editorial does go a bit overboard at the end; for a more in-depth analysis, see my article for the Village Voice site.
The question remains, meanwhile: The Daily News? Really? New York's biggest tabloid isn't exactly known for its eagerness to buck the political powers that be, so there are a couple of possibilities here: The powers involved being on Long Island, it's easier to write from scruples rather than realpolitik; or maybe the News is trying to tweak rival Newsday, whose owner, James Dolan of Cablevision (and the New York Knicks and Rangers) has endorsed his hockey rival's arena plan. Either that, or the Daily News just wants to make kids cry.
Meanwhile, Islanders owner Charles Wang took to the pages of Dolan's paper to declare that a vote for his arena is really a vote for Long Island, and added this tidbit:
Although singer Rihanna played the Coliseum last week, Wang said some top musical talent, which he didn't identify, has refused to appear in the arena because of its condition. The new arena would have at least 17,000 seats and 50 luxury suites, compared to the Coliseum's 16,600 and 31 suites.
"What acts look at is the size of your building. So if you could go to Brooklyn and it's got a thousand more seats or 1,500 more seats than the current Coliseum, where is that act going? They're going to get the same people. People from Long Island . . .," said [Islanders VP Michael] Picker.
I haven't been to a concert at the Coliseum in more than 20 years, and I'm not top musical talent, so I can't comment on the fitness of the existing arena. But if we're really talking about spending $400 million to add 1,500 seats here, then — in the words of one act I saw there — maybe there's another way to do this.
July 14, 2011
Nassau exec accused of illegal Islanders arena campaigning
It's behind the Newsday paywall and I haven't been able to find it on the newspaper's mobile site (which is paywall-free), but a story yesterday by reporter Celeste Hadrick charges that Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano has been leading a "vote yes" campaign out of his office and with public employees, in violation of state law.
The Association for a Better Long Island, a business group that opposes the $400 million arena plan, is now asking for the Nassau district attorney to investigate:
ABLI Executive Director Desmond Ryan stated, “It's simple. It's illegal. In fact, it's a felony. State law specifically forbids public employees from working on 'company time' in government buildings for the purpose of advocating on behalf of an elected official or a public referendum. It’s an abuse of the public trust and it is a violation of basic government integrity that taxpayers have a right to demand."
More news as I can dig it out from the Newsday servers.
June 28, 2011
Islanders arena plan documents: Rent payments are solid, economic impact is built on air
Thanks to an alert FoS reader, I can now provide links to the economic impact study for the proposed new New York Islanders arena and the arena lease itself. There's a lot to dig through, but among the highlights:
- The Islanders would be responsible for all maintenance and operations of the arena. This should come as a big relief to Nassau taxpayers, since operations costs can easily come to many millions of dollars a year.
- The arena revenue that the county would get 11.5% of, to use in paying off the arena debt, is defined to include "gross revenues ... in any way related to" hockey games, concerts, or other entertainment, and "shall include, without limitation, ticket revenues and revenues from food, beverage, merchandise and other concessions, novelties, catering, suite licenses and fees, clubs seats, radio broadcast, sponsorshop (including signage and other advertising), internet, ... naming rights, publications, parking and personal seat licenses." Everything except cable TV revenue, in other words, so unless the Islanders owners figure out how to create a sports cable network and assign all their arena revenues to that — maybe that should be until they figure that out — the county would be a full 11.5% partner in the Isles' business.
- That's the good news, all from the lease. The less good news comes from the economic impact statement, where consultant Camoin Associates explains how they projected that the county would end up turning a $2 million a year profit on the deal: "If the Arena is not built, the Islanders have stated that they would leave and the County has said that the Coliseum would eventually close. All economic activity associated with the Islanders would be lost to the County." In other words, the only thing the new arena plan was compared to was scorched earth — and every single dollar currently spent on hockey or concerts at the Coliseum (aside from any concerts that could relocate to a different Nassau venue) would be assumed to disappear from the county economy. There's no indication that Camoin made any attempt to account for the substitution effect — i.e., the possibility that if the Islanders really moved away and the county closed the Coliseum in a fit of pique, a couple from Ronkonkoma denied the ability to buy Motley Crue tickets might just decide to go to the movies locally instead of driving to Brooklyn. (Some Motley Crue fans, anyway. You know, the fair-weather kind.)
So in exchange for spending $26 million a year on an arena, Nassau County taxpayers would expect to get $19 million a year from the Islanders' 11.5% tithe of revenues (assuming revenues are as high as the Islanders project), plus another $9 million in "new" sales, hotel, and entertainment taxes, if you accept Camoin's premise that any money spent at a new arena would be "new." As I said last week, that's not an awful deal, but it's a fair bet that the county will end up losing a few million dollars a year on this deal.
Is that worth it, in order to keep the Islanders in town? We'll see what Nassau County voters say on August 1. Though I'd feel better about it if I thought there was any chance that the campaign ads would actually explain the details of the lease and economic impact report, instead of, well, this.
June 24, 2011
Nassau County and the owners of the New York Islanders have announced their lease plan for a new $400 million (or $350 million, or $430 million — accounts vary) arena, a little more than a month before an August 1 public referendum on the project. Previously, Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano had said only that the arena would be paid for by revenues from the team and taxes generated by the arena; now, we have some more details of how that would work. According to Forbes:
The Islanders will pay $14 million a year in rent and based on a study performed by Camoin Associates, the new arena will generate $1.2 billion in additional revenue for the county.
Only not exactly. That $14 million, it turns out, isn't actually rent: Under the lease, the county would pay to build the arena, then would receive 11.5% of the revenue from it, including both Islanders games and other events. The minimum the county would be guaranteed to receive under the lease, even if the Islanders can't sell tickets and arena rock bands stop touring, would be $14 million a year.
Debt service on the arena bonds, meanwhile, would be an estimated $26 million, so the county could lose up to $12 million a year in down years. That Camoin study, though (which is supposedly attached at the Forbes site, though it won't load for me), projects $28.2 million in county revenue the first year, with receipts going up each year after that, which would produce a profit for the county.
Which brings us to problem #2: That county "revenue" includes not just money shared by the Islanders (which is already ill-defined — does it include sales of Islanders jerseys, if the Islanders ever get good enough for anyone to be seen in public wearing Islanders gear?) but "sales, hotel, and entertainment taxes generated from the new arena." So yet again, it's a form of TIF. Except that it's worse than a TIF, because there you're only kicking back the incremental new revenue over what you were getting at the old arena — here, it appears that all the taxes collected at the arena would count as "rent," which is a neat trick if you can talk your landlord into it.
So the county would be paying to build an arena and handing over control of 77 acres of development rights to Islanders owner Charles Wang, and in return would get ... somewhere between a $12 million a year loss and a $2 million (and rising) a year profit, assuming you count as "profit" taxes that any development on the site, including the existing Nassau Coliseum, would be paying anyway.
There are still tons of unknowns about this deal — among other things, I can find no public mention of whether the team or the county would be responsible for arena operating costs — but on first glance, it looks like Nassau County would be taking all the risk, in exchange for just 11.5% of the upside. There are certainly worse arena deals out there, but given the state of arena financing, that's not exactly something to brag about.
May 16, 2011
Islanders arena plan must convince rest of humanity
Newsday, which apparently is willing to drop its paywall if you're reading on a phone (or just pretend to be), has a good rundown of the hurdles facing the new New York Islanders arena, and they are legion:
- The $400 million plan must be approved by Nassau County voters, which is no slam dunk, despite an August 1 referendum date seemingly picked to ensure low voter turnout, which would benefit a get-out-the-vote campaign by construction unions.
- Two-thirds of the county legislature would need to vote for the financing plan, and right now even the Republican majority isn't entirely on board. "We don't need to have a contract in place," county comptroller George Maragos told Newsday. "We just need a good understanding of the revenue sharing and why it is beneficial to the county."
- The Nassau Interim Finance Authority "represents perhaps the biggest hurdle," according to Newsday. George Marlin, a board member of the agency that took over the county's finances in January, told the paper: "I have a fiduciary obligation to examine and study the proposal and make sure the assumptions are based on reality and not pie in the sky hopes. And if it does not meet reality, then as a fiduciary, I have no alternative but to seriously consider not approving such a project."
In all three cases, it sounds like the key will be whether Islanders owner Charles Wang can make a case that the arena financing numbers will add up — or at the very least, explain what they are. Wang told Newsday: "We'll do everything we can to make it work, get the information out, make people understand what the alternatives are, and we'll keep working at it." HTH
May 12, 2011
Nassau exec proposes $400m Islanders arena, to be paid for by (mumble-mumble, hey look over there!)
Stop the presses, the New York Islanders arena project lives! A year and a half after team owner Charles Wang declared an impasse, Nassau County announced a revived arena plan yesterday:
A suburban county placed under a state fiscal watchdog earlier this year will ask voters this summer to let it borrow $400 million to replace the New York Islanders' aging arena, as well as construct a minor league baseball park nearby.
If approved, the proposal to replace the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum will keep the NHL team on Long Island until 2045, Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano said at a raucous news conference Wednesday. The event at the nearly 40-year-old arena featured several hundred union workers in the grandstands chanting "build it now," as well as a smattering of Islanders fans decked out in the team's blue and orange jerseys.
Mangano insisted that revenue from the Islanders and sales tax generated by the new arena would be enough to repay the $400 million in bonds over the course of a new 30-year lease for the team, although neither he nor Islanders owner Charles Wang offered specifics on the financial arrangement.
So who exactly would be paying off the bonds? As noted above, Mangano wasn't exactly saying. "Revenue from the sales tax generated by the new arena" sure sounds like a STIF, though, which is an extremely dangerous funding method given that 1) you could just end up cannibalizing existing sales tax receipts and 2) there's always the danger that if the economy slumps, sales tax receipts will go down, and then you end up having to dip into the general fund to make the bond payments. The Nassau Interim Finance Authority, which took over the county's finances in January, seems to agree, issuing a statement that it's "deeply concerned" about the arena plan and its "fiscal implications for the county."
Either way, though, it looks like this thing is going to a vote of Nassau County residents on August 1. According to New York Magazine's cite of the paywalled Newsday, "pressed for details about the revenue-sharing agreement -- and whether those figures would be available to the public before the August vote -- Mangano said, 'If it can be done, it will be.'" Now that's reassuring.
May 12, 2010
Mets "talking" with Islanders, MLS about Queens move
More rumors of rumors, but: New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon tells Newsday (via its new sister publication Gothamist, since Newsday has hidden all its articles behind a $5/week paywall) that he's "had conversations with Islanders owner Charles [Wang] and we've talked about Queens," and that he's also talked to MLS commissioner Don Garber about a soccer stadium, though "we probably can't do both."
Any hockey or soccer venue would presumably be built in the Citi Field parking lot, though Willets Point is always a possibility as well if New York City follows through with its redevelopment plans. The bigger question — who would pay for it — Wilpon and Newsday left undiscussed.
If nothing else, anyway, this gives Wang some added leverage on his move threats to kick Nassau County into approving his plans there. And who knows, maybe Wilpon is just doing his fellow owner a favor by tossing out some red meat to the tabloids — though right now it's not like his team doesn't have its own ways to get itself into the paper.
December 04, 2009
Nets naming-rights deal cut in half
Remember that record-breaking $20 million a year naming-rights deal that Barclays Bank signed for the New Jersey Nets' new Brooklyn arena almost three years ago? Turns out the real number is only a little over $10 million. The New York Observer's Eliot Brown, who pored over the 772-page arena financing document released last week by Goldman Sachs, reports:
According to documents related to the arena's financing that were released Thursday, Barclays will pay $10 million a year to the arena's owner for the 20-year deal. Looking solely at this, it would seem to make it a half-off discount, but there are a number of other untold fees paid directly to the Nets as part of the naming rights, according to the documents. Forest City Ratner declined to provide those numbers, and a spokesman for Barclays declined to comment. ...
Whatever the fees paid directly to the team, it's hard to think that they're twice $10 million a year. After all, a consultant's study attached to the documents refers repeatedly to the transaction as a $200 million naming rights deal, and uses that number as a basis of comparison for other naming rights deals.
If there was indeed a revision, it came either at the end of 2008 or earlier this year. The original 2007 contract expired at the end of 2008, but was extended after Barclays and Mr. Ratner's firm, Forest City Ratner, renegotiated. At that time, new terms were not released, though Barclays released a statement saying it was "unwavering in its commitment" to the project. The financial documents released now say the deal was again amended in August 2009.
This only makes the Brooklyn arena deal look worse for developer and Nets owner Bruce Ratner, who's already had to agree to sell off a large share of the team and arena to raise capital, and is looking at possibly $60 million a year in bond payments, plus up-front cash costs.
The Goldman Sachs documents (downloadable here after an annoying registration requirement also reveal that using the arena for hockey is still on the table, notwithstanding that the latest arena design would be too small for the NHL: "The New York Islanders could potentially become a tenant of the proposed arena as well... If built as planned, the arena would need to be retrofitted to accommodate the ice-making abilities the NHL requires for its franchises." In other words, more money to add to the arena's already $1.1 billion price tag.
Meanwhile, Ratner got more bad news yesterday, albeit in an oblique form: A New York state court yesterday ruled that the state can't use eminent domain to take property for an expansion of Columbia University, stating the declaration that the land was blighted was unconstitutional because the state had "failed to adopt, retain or promulgate any regulation or written standard for the finding of blight." While it's unlikely this will be enough to overturn last month's eminent domain approval for Atlantic Yards, it certainly casts some uncertainty on the project right when Ratner and friends are trying to obtain bond insurance, set interest rates, and sell bonds, all processes that shudder at uncertainty. You know that's what Matthew Brinkerhoff, lawyer for the Atlantic Yards opponents, was thinking when he declared yesterday, "If I was involved in the bond sale, I would be looking at this decision and it would concern me, in a way that is very unexpected." Was that the sound of a few extra basis points I just heard?
October 05, 2009
Wang unleashes Islanders move threat
Sure enough, the New York Islanders arena situation blew up big-time over the weekend, with team owner Charles Wang announcing that since no deal was in place by the time of Saturday's season opener, management planned to "explore all our options," including moving the team out of Long Island.
The center of the dispute is over getting zoning approval from the tiny town of Hempstead for Wang's multi-billion-dollar Lighthouse development project, which would include a rebuilt Nassau Coliseum for the Islanders. Wang contends that Hempstead officials are dragging their feet on giving approvals for the project, which has been in the works for years; Hempstead supervisors retort that they're still waiting for answers from Wang about what exactly the project would entail. In the latest twist, supervisor Kate Murray called Wang on Friday asking for a meeting to discuss the project, Wang told her it was too late for discussions, Murray passed this on to Newsday, and Wang declared that now he felt he couldn't trust Murray: "I don't want to say you can't, but it's difficult."
As to where else the Islanders might go, that's an excellent question: You may recall that the NHL is already looking at having one franchise in search of a home. A league source insisted to Fanhouse that six suitors were ready to woo the Islanders, but named only two: Kansas City and the New York City borough of Queens. Queens doesn't have an arena, though, and as we've discussed here, Kansas City's arena is run by AEG, which has an incentive not to offer a sweetheart deal to get a team to relocate.
And before anyone asks: The Atlantic Yards arena in Brooklyn has been "value engineered" to have too small a floor for a hockey rink. So that ain't happening either, not without Bruce Ratner finding more money under the sofa cushions.
October 02, 2009
Islanders sign long-term lease, immediately threaten to move
The New York Islanders' long-simmering Lighthouse project (no actual lighthouses included) looks ready to blow up again. Yesterday, Isles owner Charles Wang and Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi agreed to a long-term lease that would keep the team at a renovated Nassau Coliseum through 2030 — then Wang turned around and said he was cutting off talks unless the development project was immediately approved: "This is not the point to start negotiating anything. It's yes or no."
The threat was levied at the Hempstead town board, which has yet to agree to zoning changes to allow Wang and partner Scott Rechler to build the $3.8 billion Lighthouse project, which would include a hotel, office buildings, and a convention center, on what's currently public land around the arena. (Under the new lease, Wang would spend $320 million of his own money to renovate Nassau Coliseum, plus pay $1.5 million in rent, but would get to lease 77 acres of county-owned land for $1.) Wang has given the town board until tomorrow to approve the zoning, and fumed that if the board didn't vote by then — something that seems all but certain, since it doesn't have any meetings scheduled today or tomorrow — he "would construe that as a no." This could be a very interesting weekend.
September 29, 2009
Is the Sprint Center really making money?
The Wichita Eagle looks at a report in the Kansas City Star (by our old friend Kevin Collison) that that city's new Sprint Center is making money, and wonders whether that might be good news for Wichita's soon-to-open Intrust Bank Arena, NCAAs or no NCAAs.
Only one problem: While the Sprint Center is indeed turning a profit, that's only an operational profit — in other words, it doesn't count the cost of paying for building it in the first place. Kansas City essentially handed over the building to arena managers AEG after it was complete, and told them to deal with the expense of running the place and allowed them to keep most of the proceeds; the fact that K.C. will see any money at all, in fact (estimated at $1.8 million this year), is an indication that AEG is doing a good job, since according to its lease it doesn't need to share any profits at all with the city until it's making a 16% return itself. Given that K.C. is on the hook for $10-15 million a year in arena bond payments (guesstimating here — that information doesn't seem to be online anywhere [UPDATE: It is now, and I was — ahem — on the money]), there's almost no way it will actually turn a profit on building the Sprint Center.
That said, it's still better for AEG to be running a profit than running a loss, especially since the Sprint Center still doesn't have a major-league sports tenant. And AEG seems to be intent on using its success with concerts to drive a hard bargain with any sports teams looking to move to Kansas City: AEG president Tim Leiweke told the Star, "The economic model of this building is quite successful. The last thing we or the city want to do is throw away that model and make the arena a loss leader with another tenant. It's a tougher scenario with a professional team. I'm sure we wouldn't be able to write a check to the city for $1.8 million." In other words: As predicted, they're not going to be no pushovers for, say, the Islanders.
February 26, 2009
Isles file arena paperwork, financing still hazy
It's been over a month now since the New York Islanders dropped hints they'd consider relocating if their stalled arena plan wasn't approved, and the status of owner Charles Wang's "Lighthouse Project" — so called because it used to feature a giant lighthouse in the middle of its condos-and-shopping development, though it's since replaced it with a terrible light-rock theme song — is as clear as mud. Wang issued a 6,000-page environmental report on the project on Tuesday, but told Newsday that he still hasn't figured out how he'll pay for it:
In an interview after the meeting, Wang said he has not yet obtained financing for the project. But he said he's optimistic about getting funding in increments over the 10 years the project would be built.
"How can I get funding until zoning is approved?" he said. "We are talking to a lot of banks obviously. ... If the project is good, we can get it done.
Wang said he could look to foreign countries, possibly China, for investment cash; local developer Ted Weiss called it a "virtually impossible" task, telling Newsday, "I can't imagine any bank, insurance company, pension plan or any traditional lender who's capable of doing a project of that size."
Newsday further reports that Wang is "keeping his options open" about a possible move (their words, not his). Nassau County spokesperson Bruce Nyman, asked whether Wang's scheduling of an exhibition game in Kansas City was a subtle threat to get the arena deal approved or else, replied: "I don't think it was that subtle."
February 12, 2009
KC official: My niece knows a guy who knows a guy who knows the Islanders
The alt-weekly Pitch in Kansas City has video of city manager Wayne Cauthen being asked about when KC's almost-two-year-old Sprint Center might get an NBA or NHL team to play in it. Cauthen, after first quipping that he "niece works for the New Jersey Nets" (at least, the audience laughs like it's a quip), says that "there is some discussion going on with the Islanders - they have a little situation with their facility. I don't see any city building new arenas right now." Cue the 72-point type!
Also featured in the Pitch article: a bunch of quotes from yours truly, including, "You don't leave New York for Kansas City"; discussion of the fact that AEG, which controls the arena rights, won't be eager to give a team a sweetheart lease deal the same way a city might; and speculation that the New Orleans Hornets are one team for which a move to Kansas City might actually represent an upgrade: "You can say, OK, we have an arena and you'd have to pay us some rent but at least you wouldn't be in a city that's lost half of its population." I only hope I didn't give anybody any ideas...
January 19, 2009
Newsday writer: I love the smell of move threats in the morning
I don't even know what to say about this:
Good for the Islanders for finally standing up for themselves and taking a public stand... At a time when NHL commissioner Gary Bettman had no problem playing the role of the bad guy, urging the Town of Hempstead to move this along, owner Charles Wang sat on the sideline, remaining quiet.
Some praised him for refusing to play the game of public threats, of refusing to scare Islanders fans by threatening to move, but at the same time there's something to be said about saying enough is enough. We all know the Islanders have no future here if something isn't done about Nassau Coliseum. So remaining quiet while nothing was happening with his submitted plans could only last for so long.
That's Newsday sports columnist Jim Baumbach, weighing in on how the Islanders scheduling an exhibition game in Kansas City to get everyone freaked that the team will move there is refreshingly direct. You'd almost think he worked for an NHL owner - oh, wait....
January 16, 2009
Islanders next contestant on "Who's Threatening to Move to K.C.?"
It's now been almost five years since Kansas City announced plans to build a hockey arena without an actual hockey team to play in it. As I wrote at the time:
That sound you just heard was the ka-ching! of cash registers in the souls of NHL owners, smelling a move threat to wave in the faces of local elected officials come August.
The Pittsburgh Penguins already cashed in on that threat, and now it looks like it's the New York Islanders' turn. From TSN:
The Islanders have agreed in principle with the Los Angeles Kings to play an exhibition game in Kansas City in September.
This may not seem like that big of a deal in light of the fact other NHL teams have used Kansas City in recent years as a neutral cite for preseason games.
However, according to league sources this game could be perceived as a veiled threat of potential relocation if plans for a new arena on Long Island aren't soon finalized.
According to "league sources," huh? You mean the same league that has a vested interest in getting teams' hometowns to build them new arenas, by dropping hints that the team will move without one, if necessary? The same league whose commissioner, Gary Bettman, said on the radio Thursday of the Islanders' home, Nassau Coliseum, "That building has to be replaced. And if I were [Isles owner] Charles Wang, I wouldn't sign an extension on that building for a new lease under any circumstances"?
But I'm sure that's all just a coincidence.