Spurs arena subsidy could reach $1.3B, setting new NBA record for taxpayer money

One of the standard items in the stadium campaign playbook is “moving the goalposts” — setting a target for public funding, then once you get it, asking for more on top. It’s a tactic that goes back well before the sports subsidy boom of the last 40 years, at least to New York highway czar Robert Moses, whose go-to move was to use all his available funds to launch a contruction project, then go back to the government for more because what good is half a bridge?

San Antonio Spurs Peter Holt is proving to be a master goalpost-mover, piecing together a series of different taxpayer funding asks while hoping no one will do the math to see what it adds up to:

• In August, he got the San Antonio city council to approve funneling $489 million worth of future property and sales taxes to a new arena as part of his “Project Marvel” downtown development.
• In November, he spent at least $7 million on a successful referendum campaign to win $311 million in future Bexar County hotel and car rental taxes to be used for the arena project. (Note: I’ve been reporting that this is $311 million paid out over 30 years, which would only cover about $150 million in current arena costs, because that’s what much of the reporting has said; other reporting and some documents, however, imply that the county would pony up $311 million now, and pay it off with significantly more money over time. The ballot language itself, frustratingly, doesn’t say which it is. I’m continuing to research this, please drop a line if you can provide any concrete confirmation.)
• Next up, he has another proposed ballot measure set for a vote next May, this time to sell city bonds to provide $250 million in road upgrades so that people can actually get to the arena that they are paying to help build with both their city and county taxes. (This would only be the “first phase” of the traffic work; somewhere, Robert Moses is smiling.)

The only risk of going back to the well so many times is that eventually, people may catch on that you’re starting to talk about real money. And that may be happening to Holt, as the San Antonio Express-News is hinting that San Antonio voters may not like being seen as a bottomless well:

Those improvements — including highway ramps, intersection work and new parking spaces — will likely eat up a sizable chunk of the bond program that will go to San Antonio voters. That means less money for neighborhood projects, which could make the bond a harder sell to voters who already weren’t on board with the downtown arena plan.

(The May vote also would only be for city residents, which could be significant as the November vote was pushed over the top by some wealthy suburban districts.)

The San Antonio Current went into more detail on all this last week, reporting that UT-San Antonio political science professor Jon Taylor thinks that voters could be turned off not just by being asked for repeated bond issues for the arena project, but by a potentially worsening economy:

“One of the biggest problems they face is that we do not know how bad this economy is going to get between now and May,” Taylor said. “How are you going to be able to sell voters on a half-billion-dollar bond proposal that will raise taxes or cost the city money in the face of likely city budget deficits? Will the mayor be on board with it?”…

“The things that get hit first [in a recession] are tourism and conventions,” Taylor said. “So, the prospects of getting a bond passed and convincing people that in a recessionary economy this is a good thing to do — instead of being more prudent with taxpayer money — is a hard sell and an uphill climb.”

If you noticed that Taylor said “half-billion-dollar bond proposal,” that wasn’t a typo: Next May’s ballot measure may actually be for $500 million, as the San Antonio Water System’s chilling plant may need to be relocated to make way for a new hotel that would be part of the project. That would bring the total public subsidy to somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.3 billion, or almost exactly what the arena itself will cost to build. That would also be by far the largest arena subsidy in history, all to replace a venue that is the 11th-newest in the NBA, in a city already dealing with staffing cuts to balance its budget. That indeed sounds like a hard sell — Holt should probably dig under the sofa cushions now for a few million dollars to spend on campaign ads next spring, just in case.