The latest Sacramento Kings arena plans, presented entirely in attempts at spin

Sacramento Kings officials presented arena “concepts” to the city council yesterday, including a bunch of renderings that, the Sacramento Bee stresses, “are not arena renderings.” Presumably this means “they’re just a bunch of random sketches that the Kings threw together so that we could put up a slideshow, because man, do slideshows bring in the hit counts — hey, have you looked yet at our slideshow of not-arena-renderings?”

So if the drawings aren’t meant to look like what the arena actually will, we’re left with what Kings officials said at the presentation. Which was apparently such a tsunami of p.r. verbiage that it’s best just to present it with no context or attribution or anything, just as pure unadulterated spin:

“We want to figure out how to knit the street grid back together. We can’t do that literally – (the arena) is bigger than any city block – but you can create the possibility of moving through the site.”

“We want people to walk there at 2 o’clock on a Thursday afternoon and enjoy being there.”

“We want to blur the lines of whether you’re sitting inside the arena or you’re outside.”

“It doesn’t make sense for us to build a big, giant building. When we go to the (NBA) Finals, and we will get to the Finals, we know we can address (the need for more seating) to pump up the crowd.”

What this seems to add up to, reading between the lines, is: “We don’t want to spend a lot of money building a building that we can’t sell out on a nightly basis, so instead we’re going to put some folding chairs outside and let people peek in through a window. Also, we know that arenas create giant obstructions to the streetscape, but this one will be different because, um, architecture!”

Which is a nice goal, but it’s far easier said than done. Kings officials are getting really good at the saying part, though.

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6 comments on “The latest Sacramento Kings arena plans, presented entirely in attempts at spin

  1. Tons and zillions and trillions and zillions of dollars have been spent downtown Sacramento by various agencies set to fleece the public and then put cash into the both the developers and politicians crooked pockets…they run under all kinds of acronyms…SHRA, CADA….all FAILED redevelopment agencies run by incompetent government bureaucrats who can not get a job anywhere else…

    the results?

    failed urban malls, failed streetscapes, failed housing projects that quickly turn into crime nightmares, failed entertainment zones….you name it…Sacramento City has failed at it…and now you have a child molesting Mayor of Sacramento and a developer, Nehemiah, which was nothing more than a low budget street corner shell game to fleece low income people and force them to buy houses they could not afford or care for…bunch of scum…

    A real big DUMP downtown Sacrament with no vitality and kids going to the local colleges…maybe 150,000 of them; who are waiting for a chance to graduate and migrate to LA, SF, Portland or Seattle….and find a real city….

    this Kings scam is just more of the same

  2. What you didn’t talk about is that they’re now openly saying that this arena will not hold 18,500. They mentioned that in the last 5 years, no event at STA has drawn 17,000, only two have drawn over 16,000… So there’s really no reason to make this one hold over 17,000.

    Not to mention that the folks who are outside are counted as capacity, so really, this arena will be bigger.

    By the way, in the last 5 years, I do remember NBA games selling out. Not very many, for sure. But only 2 events over 16,000 is hogwash. I’d want to see the supporting documentation for that claim, because I don’t believe it.

    Here, by the way, is the real reason they’re lowering the capacity: They have figured out that they cannot build an 18,500 seat arena — I mention this number because the term sheets do — at that location, for $447M. Especially now that they’re talking about going below grade. With the EIR coming in June, they want to go from starting construction after June 2014, to opening night in October 2016. Oh, and they still have an eminent domain issue to work out.

    So now they’re going after a “less is more!” marketing campaign. I never knew Big Brother was our mayor.

  3. By the way, building below-grade is an issue in this area. There’s a small issue of the Sacramento River being about 1/2 mile from the arena site. Everything in that area leaks or floods during the winter — it’s a chronic issue.

    That’s an engineering challenge that can be mitigated, but it’s never cheap to do so. If you can avoid building below-grade at that location, you should consider it.

    A below-grade parking lot is one thing; an arena is something else entirely. But when we build below-grade, it makes me wonder where they plan to put that 2,700 space premium lot. The geography gets a bit murky at that point.

  4. Good point about the flooding issue. The Sacramento Bee article mentioned that the floor of the arena would sit 30 feet below street level. There would likely be a basement of some sort below that for maintenance and access. All together they are talking about having this monstrosity 3 to 4 stories below grade. That is a lot of water to collect and divert during time near or above flood stage.

  5. I think there might be a vote. That’s my best guess at this point.

    http://www.sacbee.com/2013/10/31/5869341/anti-arena-subsidy-group-stop.html

    If they really do get to 33,000 internally-validated signatures, there has to be one.

    My only question, though, is how can this affect a project the Council has already passed.

  6. MikeM – The city council has not finalized an agreement regarding the subsidy. What they passed was a preliminary, non-binding term sheet with all terms subject to change and all terms subject to approval by the NBA. The final documents are not expected to be completed until sometime next year.

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