For all of youse who’ve been commenting and emailing to suggest that a global pandemic and economic collapse is surely going to bring at least a temporary end to the constant cycle of sports-venue subsidies that has been ongoing for more than 30 years now, Henderson, Nevada is here to tell you: NUH-UH, IT WON’T.
On Tuesday, what to do with the Henderson Pavilion will come back before the Henderson City Council.
It may take action on issuing $60 million in bonds to pay for turning the now 20-year-old outdoor venue into a year-round entertainment spot and hockey arena.
When we last discussed this back in February, which in coronavirus time was roughly 200 years ago, Henderson was looking at building the arena for a minor-league affiliate of the Vegas Golden Knights as a “public-private partnership,” with no further details of how the funding would work. It now looks like the total public cost will be $60 million, though some of that would also pay for such things as park improvements and a police station; a previous article estimated the arena would cost $30 million to build, but then added “there is no estimated cost for the proposal of the arena,” so maybe take that one with a grain of salt.
(This Henderson arena, it is important to note, is different from the practice rink that Henderson is already spending $10 million to build for the Golden Knights, which at last word was still scheduled to open this July, not that there will likely be any hockey players to practice in it.)
Are there people saying now’s not the time to spend tens of millions of city dollars on a minor-league hockey arena for a team that is already getting city dollars for a practice rink? You betcha!
Given how the economy is now on a virus-induced ventilator, they say now’s not the time to borrow.
“We need to take a step back, we need to regroup, we need to really assess where the community is and what the needs are,” says [John] Dalrymple [of Henderson Coalition for Responsible Government].
Though Dalrymple also added, “We’re not opposed to an arena. It’s the location.” So maybe his group is more concerned about traffic than about the $30 million, actually.
And what’s the argument in favor of the arena?
Henderson real estate agent Trish Nash says the bond issue is the right thing to do. She sits on the city’s comprehensive planning committee.
“This is going to bring jobs,” she tells me and says an arena will not hurt the neighborhood. She just sold a house there.
“One of the reasons that this particular buyer bought, and this is walking distance from the pavilion, is they’re very excited about what going to happen with the arena,” she says.
JOBS! In particular, jobs for realtors who want to sell houses to people who for some reason want to live down the street from a minor-league hockey arena. And who can put a price on that?
We’ll see how the Henderson council votes today (which is just a vote on approving the arena bonds; the arena project itself would be voted on later), but this should help make it extremely clear that no sports teams are going to stop asking for subsidies just because the world has changed, and no elected officials are going to stop considering handing them out, and no one is going to stop making dumb economic arguments about why they’re necessary. That would probably take the annihilation of all sentient life on earth by an asteroid strike — though even then, I could see sports team owners arguing that this was an indication of why they needed an asteroid-proof roof.
I really hope somebody picks the low hanging fruit of “Hey wouldn’t it be significantly cheaper to just rerenovate nearby Orleans Arena?”
I know it still comes down to “Who is going to pay for this during end times?” but still….
I have fond memories of the Orleans Area and that whole complex. Spent several March weekends there for hoops tourneys. The lousy hotel rooms are offest by the bowling alley, TGIF’s with my reserved table and the heavy pours in the luxury box bars. And the long walk from there to the Strip gives you visibility to the real life of Vegas and how depressing it is.
Back to the matter at hand…..it would shock me, if every team owner in every city for every stadium, arena, etc. DIDN’T come calling for money and use JOBS JOBS JOBS as the rallying cry.
There are only three economic conditions in which taxpayer subsidy to millionaires or billionaires can be considered.
1. When the economy is strong and tax revenues are high, making it ‘easy’ to afford to subsidize billionaires.
2. When the economy is weak and stimulus is needed to produce jobs jobs jobs and to hell with the cost.
3. When the economy is stable and we need to do something to light a fire under it (using tax dollars as fuel, of course).
Hey! Wait a minute…