Let’s check in on how the Arizona Coyotes owners’ proposal for a $400 million Tempe arena, half paid for by tax kickbacks, is going over with the state officials who’d need to approve it:
“I’m a big fan of the Coyotes but I haven’t heard anything about that,” Gov. Ducey told Welch.
“They’ve not talked to you?” Welch asked the governor, who replied, “No.”
Mmhm. Anyone else?
The newly-elected speaker of the House and a senior lawmaker who formerly chaired the House Appropriations Committee said they would be resistant to a TIF or a tax rebate.
“We care about the Coyotes, we also care about the taxpayers of the state,” said Speaker-elect J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler.
Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, the former chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said there just isn’t enough money to go around, especially at a time when the public is calling for more money for education.
“They’re not asking for a tax rebate, they’re asking for us to go into a budget deficit or to take on debt to build their private stadium,” Kavanagh said.
I’m going to go out on a limb and classify this as “not well.” While it’s still early and there’s obviously much haggling to go, perhaps this whole “announce an arena plan without telling anyone about it in advance, including the state university that you’re supposed to be partnering with” thing wasn’t the best idea. Though maybe the Coyotes owners are just really committed to transparency and not negotiating behind closed doors, in which case, kudos to them!
Curious what the Coyote’s plan was with that big announcement. Did they expect such a groundswell of support that everybody would just get in line and do the deal? It’s becoming abundantly clear that basically nobody was clued in ahead of time. Arizona State had nobody at the press conference and I don’t think has even publicly addressed the matter even though the Coyotes said they’d be a partner in the deal.
They’d be wise to take the Detroit model. Both commissioners need to sit down with Coyote and Sun ownership and figure out how to get a single downtown arena done. It’s bad enough that the arena in Glendale is going to become a white elephant. The last thing they need is multiple new arenas going up at this point.
Arizona Coyotes arena: Real estate group eases opposition, tax watchdog still against Tempe plans
http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2016/12/02/arizona-coyotes-arena-real-estate-group-eases.html