Looks like Virginia Beach will be getting its new taxpayer-subsidized arena after all, as the city council met in closed session on Tuesday, as it likes to do, to approve a new version of the financing plan that it had all but killed last fall:
The council met with City Attorney Mark Stiles in closed session Tuesday night, and he told members that the financing is in line with the deal that was approved in December 2015, according to a Facebook post from John Moss. The council agreed with Stiles’ assessment, which means it would not require a new vote.
“See you at the ground breaking this fall,” Moss wrote.
The arena funding plan is hideously complicated, you may recall, with kickbacks of property taxes, business license taxes, admissions taxes, arena meals taxes, construction sales taxes, the city’s share of arena sales taxes, plus the top 1% off of the city’s 8% hotel tax, plus cash for infrastructure and land costs. It all adds up to about $206 million worth of subsidies for a $220 million arena, which, um, yeah. The main concession the city seems to have negotiated since October is that JP Morgan will now be the lender on the stadium construction costs instead of a Chinese bank, which also, um, yeah. But let’s all applaud Virginia Beach city officials for saying no to developers, everybody!
Virginia Beach will now spend the next 30 years debating whether to pay to renovate their new arena to lure an NBA or NHL team, because nobody’s going to want to play in a building opened way back in 2017, sheesh, get real.
Well V-Beach is the the 37th largest metro area, and the NHL will probably be at 38 teams by oh, say, August of this year. So after Tucson, Albuquerque, Reno and Waco get their teams, Virginia Beach is next in line.
Hampton Roads is the 2nd largest metro area without a professional team behind Austin. I’m sure the NHL would be very interested.
I doubt it. The Navy doesn’t generally buy corporate seats.
So what else of my property are you going to tax to pay for this?