Yesterday was the deadline set by the Good Jobs and Affordable Housing for All Coalition for Kansas City Royals owner John Sherman to agree to a community benefits agreement for his planned downtown stadium, and: A CBA agreement has been reached!
Jackson County legislator Manny Abarca says the agreement includes funding for affordable housing, workforce training inclusion, and support for minority businesses, and the Kansas City Public Schools District will not lose any revenues.
“Directly from the mouths of the Royals and I can validate the community table achieved that historic and transformational win,” Abarca said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
And: The coalition of community groups says the proposed CBA sucks, and everyone should now vote against the stadium tax! From the coalition’s press release sent out last night, which isn’t on the web yet that I can find:
“Make no mistake, this project will harm Kansas City,” said Gina Chiala, attorney and executive director of Heartland Center for Jobs and Freedom, of the Royals’ new ballpark and entertainment district development. “It will divert taxpayer funds away from sorely needed programs, drive rents up, and create poverty-wage bad jobs that will keep workers struggling instead of thriving. Let’s use public funds for the things the public actually needs, not to help billionaires boost their profits.”
So what did Sherman actually agree to? We don’t know yet, since Abarca didn’t provide much in the way of details aside from claiming “a minimum of $140 million dollars of community benefit dollars,” which would be a lot of dollars dollars of dollars, though still way less than the $250-350 million in county sales tax money the Royals would be getting, not to mention the additional $650-750 million Sherman wants, possibly from the state. The coalition has called for a guarantee of living wage jobs throughout the stadium district and a promise of affordable housing units to house three times as many people as are displaced by the project, among other things. “The failure to make this happen is entirely theirs to own, and we plan on making them feel the weight of their poor decision-making at the ballot box,” said Missouri Workers Center and Stand Up KC leader Terrence Wise in last night’s press statement. “To a team that claims to do a whole lot of listening, get ready to hear us loud and clear on April 2.”
There is going to be a lot of loudness and clarity happening on April 2, certainly: A whole lot of business groups, plus construction unions that cut their own side deal for union hiring with the Royals, are all in favor of the 0.375% sales tax surcharge extension to fund about $500 million in Royals and Chiefs stadium spending; in addition to the Good Jobs Coalition, tenant and environmental groups have come out against the plan. Members of the group KC Tenants interrupted a “Vote Yes” event on Monday by … doing something loud, presumably, the event was closed to the press and Fox4KC didn’t actually describe what happened.
The best predictor of a successful stadium subsidy push, as Kevin Delaney and Rick Eckstein made clear in their book Public Dollars, Private Stadiums, is when business and political leaders are all speaking in unison in favor of it. The business community is on board here, but with labor split, some elected officials like Jackson County executive Frank White opposed, and local media taking a surprisingly critical stance (or maybe not surprising, since the media tends to frame debates in terms of the range of what elected officials are saying), the April vote is looking up in the air, let’s just say.
There’s still a chance that the community groups will come around — Wise said yesterday before Abarca’s statement that “they have an opportunity still, until April 1st, to bring something meaningful to the table,” but then also Chiala said, “Any CBA that comes out, we should make very clear, is not actually a community benefits agreement,” because “the community is not at the table.” We’ll know more today, maybe, after Sherman actually announces how many dollars of dollars he plans to devote to how much housing of housing.
Oooh…aaah…a town hall in Atlanta, too.
Forsyth County developers present plans for pro hockey arena to public
https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/03/20/forsyth-county-developers-present-plans-pro-hockey-arena-public/
Third time’s a charm!
In Arizona, it’s “third arena’s a charm.”
In Atlanta, it’s “third team’s a charm.”
The third attempt at a hockey arena in Phoenix crashed and burned 4 years ago. Just drove by the Legacy Ice Arena at I-17 and Loop 303, and it is still a quarter finished pile of rusting steel beams. The Coyotes land purchase still hasn’t posted yet, 2 new auctions have been set for June 13th, so June 17th is probably the earliest an auction can be set, which may be too late to move the Coyotes if they lose the auction. The land purchase, required infrastructure and building the arena will probably approach $1.5 billion, how a hockey team that has been bleeding tens of millions every year for 28 years can afford it isn’t a mystery, it’s impossible.
Bettman will probably find a way. An illegal, underhanded, slimy as hell way, but one nonetheless.
I had COMPLETELY forgotten about that. As of last June, they had a new owner who planned to finish the project, but, yeah, we’ll see.
https://valleyvibenews.com/2023/06/half-built-sports-arena-and-hotel-now-under-new-ownership/
Apologies KT. I incorrectly attributed your posted link to someone else below.
Thanks for posting the link.
Bill Daly said the team won’t leave before next year. There just isn’t time.
That may be true, but he would say that even if it isn’t.
As Chris Johnson and Eliotte Friedman, among others, have reported, Bettman is going to say everything is fine until the last possible second.
He has to do that. Because Meurelo isn’t willing to sell (yet). If and when the other owners have to force him to sell, it will probably end up in court and they do not want to be accused of sabotaging his efforts to keep the team in Arizona.
They also don’t want to do anything to dampen what little enthusiasm there is in Arizona for the team. Because if somehow they can get this last ditch arena deal to work, then the team will stay.
If they do leave, the league will just keep looking for another option to put an expansion team in Phoenix. It’s just too big for them not to keep trying.
Except, at least according to some estimates, it is the most unsustainable city in the US. Perhaps in the world. In ten years, maybe it won’t seem so appealing.
And while the owners (of all the leagues) want to expand to 34, 36, 40 teams, etc. They may find out that just doesn’t work.
DPT: Are you saying you doubt their promise that the facility will open to the public in fall of 2024 (even though the partnership is ‘energized and steadfast’)???
When did they say 2024? Was that for the imagined Tempe situation?
Read the linked story from DPT. It is quoted near the end.
I was talking about the Coyotes arena.
That article is from last June. I don’t know if that project has advanced.
I didn’t post a reply to your comment.
I posted a reply to Don’t Puck Tempe’s comment.
There hasn’t been any construction progress on the Legacy Ice Arena in 4 years. The only good news is that it hasn’t been demolished. With TSMC across I-17, plans for that site may have changed.
2027 is wildly optimistic for a Coyotes arena, meaning an absolute minimum of 5 years at Mullett. Judging by the endless delays on the Coyotes proposed Los Arcos arena in Scottsdale in the late 90s, when construction costs were a fraction of what they are today, 2030 is probably optimistic.
I would agree. Assuming the ‘auction’ for the land is actually going to be a free and fair auction, there is no certainty that Coyotes ownership can win it.
Add to that the difficulties in getting their preferred site ‘ready’, getting approval and funding to build, and it is really hard to see them playing there in this decade.
We have heard before from Bettman that “there needs to be a plan”. We heard that when they came up with the laughable idea of playing in a college arena (that they still can’t sell out with any regularity).
What would the NHL consider a viable and acceptable plan at this point? Any plan would probably take at least 3 yrs to puck drop (unless they can go back to one of their previous arenas… not likely).
You’d have to think the so called ‘governors’ would not be interested in a 5yr plan that is not at all certain and could easily extend to 6,7 or 8…
I hope when all is said and done an economist will take a good hard look at what the transfer of this franchise to the Phoenix area has cost the NHL and the club’s various owners and creditors.
It’s got to be nearing a billion in vaporized money by now. The revenue sharing (which they get but do not technically qualify for based on sales) would be going to “someone” if it wasn’t them anyway, but wow. Just wow.
On a related note, there was an article today in Forbes about the growing inequity in America. Which is aligned with the sports owner stadium deals.
My question is will there be enough people to pay for the privildge?
‘We are essentially in a new Gilded Age’: As workers get laid off, CEOs and shareholders gobble up hundreds of billions in profits
https://fortune.com/2024/03/18/gilded-age-layoffs-ceos-shareholders-corporate-profits-inequality/amp/
Fortune is just catching up on that now?!?
Lolz. Touché
Gold plating the seats for the rich just got more expensive, gold hit $2,200 an ounce. It must be a real bummer to go to a game in a 20 year old stadium when your house just got a million dollar renovation.
Sure is quiet on the Vegas MLB stadium front. Bad for business. You never wanna lose momin-mamont-moem energy on this kinda thing.
Anybody got any ideas?
Gee I wonder what the commenters have to say about the Royals new sta…. Oh, never mind.