The Las Vegas city council met yesterday to decide whether to kill or keep alive Cordish Cos. and Findlay Sports’ soccer stadium plan, and ended up … doing neither, kind of? With four of the seven councilmembers ready to vote down the $3 million a year in city subsidies the developers were looking for, a compromise plan was instead offered by councilmember Ricki Barlow: Vote to keep negotiating with the soccer developers, but only if they agree to work to reduce or eliminate the public subsidy.
If that’s confusing to you — is it reduce or eliminate? and by how much? — then it’s doubly so to Cordish and Findlay, which were decidedly not in on this deal. “They worded it poorly,” Findlay advisor Dean Howes told the Las Vegas Review-Journal afterwards. “They have to come back and tell us what it means.” In particular, the developers want to know whether it’s just the $3 million a year that needs to be eliminated (or reduced), or if the council also wants to do away with $21 million to be provided by a TIF district, or $14 million in infrastructure help? Also, can they still ask for that pony?
The upshot is that things are pretty much the same as before: A 4-3 majority on the council doesn’t want to give the soccer stadium all this money, and it’s up to the developers to come up with a plan that doesn’t require any, or at least enough less money that they can live with it. Cordish and Findlay now have two months to come up with a new plan. Or replace the councilmembers with robots. One of those two.
It may be vague, but that may not be a bad thing. I’ve heard that the first rule of negotiation is: “He who names a price first, loses” . If the council had said “reduce it by $5M”. Then the developer would decrease it by $5M or walk away. By being vague, the developer will come back with their best number or risk losing the project.
Barlow is an embarrassment. The way he is behaving it’s crystal clear he’s on the payroll of the developers. The amazing part of the so-called proposal is magically the developers have come up with an additional $250 million to develop land adjacent to the proposed stadium location. All the city has to do is pay all the soft costs, infrastructure costs, issue the public subsidy, all the money generated from the TIF, and expect nothing in return. No mention how the city is hemorraghing money so badly that public services, works, and programs are being slashed across the board. Oh, and the city is on the hook for the Mob Museum (flop), Smith Center ($170 million worth of bonds), City Hall (wasn’t needed, an additional $115 million worth of bonds), Fremont Street Experience (still haven’t paid off that nut), and the Lou Ruvo Center (more bonds). No money for more cops, who don’t even show up for accidents anymore due to lack of personnel. No money for the county hospital, which is on the verge of shutting down, as it bleeds money to the tune of $20 million/year. But hey, let’s build a soccer stadium to play games in 110+ heat in the dead of summer in a blighted area.
“But hey, let’s build a soccer stadium to play games in 110+ heat in the dead of summer in a blighted area.”
On the plus side, Vegas doesn’t even have a team, so no lives will be endangered by the heat stroke/exhaustion.
I oppose 100% ANY plan that does NOT require Cordish/Findlay/other partner (s) to pay the 14
million dollars in infrastructure costs; WHICH WE MUST INSIST ARE COMPLETED IN THEIR ENTIRETY BEFORE ANY STADIUM OPENS ITS DOORS TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC; AND THE PARTNERSHIP’S
ENTIRE ASSUMPTION OF THE 3 MILLION PER YR FOR 30 YEARS COSTS; THAT THE CITY OF LAS VEGAS CANNOT AFFORD TO PAY OUT! THANKS FOR LISTENING!
@Las Vegas Here: I agree with you, but I should point out that FIFA has already approved the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, which their 120° summers are hotter than Vegas’, and who knows? by 2022 Qatar could be considerably warmer than that.
Corruption aside, a lot more goes into choosing a FIFA World Cup destination than some puny MLS franchise.
All I’m saying is apparently extreme heat has remarkably proven itself not to be a deterrent to outdoor sports.
You know what is a deterrent to professional sports?
Gambling. Vegas is still on the silent blacklist of sports owners and only MLS has flirted with us now we wanna pay for dinner. Nope. Don’t even wanna go dutch.
This story is still about rich people trying to one-up their loved ones legacies. Goodman, Findlay…heard these names all my life. Do they need a W? Maybe. Do I want them to have it? Never.