I wasn’t going to post anything about the latest Virginia Beach arena news, which involves the developers taking out their construction loan from a U.S. bank instead of a Chinese bank, but then I saw this headline:
VA Beach Arena to be funded by U.S. bank
Yeah, just no. The arena isn’t going to be funded by the bank; it’s going to be financed by the bank. The actual funds going to pay off the arena loans will come from a mega-TIF tax kickback of all property taxes, business license taxes, admissions taxes, arena meals taxes, construction sales taxes, the city’s share of arena sales taxes, and the top 1% off of the city’s 8% hotel tax, which will leave city taxpayers providing about $206 million toward an arena that will only cost $200 million to build. Sorry to be pedantic about the word choice, but it’s kind of a big omission when your headline gets entirely wrong who’s paying for your city’s new arena, you know?
Don’t feel bad Neil,
I have clients who swear the SBA is going to fund their start-up business. When I tell them the SBA is a guarantor to the bank and that the bank is the one that provides the money via financing, they immediately get cold feet. Apparently the term “fund” has become an euphemism for “financed”.
Great catch, Neil! Typical pro-subsidy rhetoric.