Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed says he’s met with the new owners of the Hawks about their stated desire for a new or renovated arena, and any hopes you may have had that he was going to tell them, “Fine, you want to replace your 16-year-old arena, do it on your own dime,” you can forget about that:
Reed said he’s met once with the team’s new owners and repeated his willingness to consider a deal involving the use public funds. The mayor first indicated that option last year in the wake of controversy involving the team’s previous leadership.
“What I’m willing to do is come to the table with a plan that makes sense and is fair to the people of Atlanta,” Reed said. “I’m not closed to participating in a reasonable plan to make sure that the Hawks remain in the city and that’s what I expressed in our meeting.”
Mayor Reed has a bit of a weird history with sports subsidies, being a prime mover behind giving hundreds of millions of public dollars to the Falcons for their new stadium, then declaring offering the Braves money to keep their from moving to Cobb County to be too rich for his blood, then offering $150 million for the Hawks to extend their lease when they weren’t even threatening to break it. There’s also the little matter that the Hawks couldn’t leave without paying off about $100 million in remaining bonds on the Philips Arena (and couldn’t leave before 2018 without paying an additional $75 million in penalties), but that’s apparently not going to stop Reed from leading with his wallet.
Possible sites for a new arena would be the Atlanta Civic Center (the current filming site for Family Feud, according to Wikipedia), a rehab of the existing Philips Arena (which the Hawks own), or a third, undisclosed site. Total cost: Who knows?
Prediction: This is not going to end well.
“His wallet”?
His wallet, with taxpayers’ money in it.
“Prediction: This is not going to end well.”
Except for the owners of the Hawks!
“WOW!” Did you see that report on the flaming surfer dude? How about ten swimming pools in the inner city to go along with the bond proposal?
Yeah this is beyond ridiculous, and I’m a guy who disagrees with you a lot.
Anybody got any predictions for the next most-absurd-Atlanta-sports-facility story we’ll see? Even with as ridiculous as these things have gotten over the years, every single story that comes out of Atlanta is just on a whole other planet.
Oh, and my prediction is that Georgia Tech will ask the city for a new basketball arena, or else they’re moving to Las Vegas.
That’s a nice arena in Atlanta. It opened the same year (1999) as the Pepsi Center here in Denver, where I live.
No one is talking about the Nuggets/Avs needing a new arena. I think that is because Silent Stan Kroenke owns the arena here. He even has a penthouse somewhere inside of it. I bet if he didn’t, he would be asking for a new arena too.
New NHL arena to lure a replacement for the Thrashers? It’s the only major sport left.
Fooey to the NBA. Where will they relocate Family Feud? D:
If Atlanta gets another NHL team before Canada is upto 9-10 I may lose it.
Before the Atlanta Hawks had a winning season last year, their first in 84 years, I thought they were a serious candidate to relocate to Seattle. Now I add Vegas to that list knowing they’re going to stay put….. The south will alway bend over for a sports stadium.
Move back to The Omni.
Pro sports stars have plenty of groupies who want to date them and men who want to bask in the reflected glory but Mayor Reed seems to be a professional sports team OWNER groupie. He just can’t get enough of doing their bidding in exchange for a pat on the head. The city might have been better off to have purchased a pro team and gifted it to the mayor so he could have a team of his very own to play with instead of having to live vicariously through the billionaires who do.