Category: Henderson minor-league hockey team

The Henderson, Nevada city council voted yesterday on authorizing $60 million in public bonds to pay for a minor-league hockey arena for an affiliate of the Vegas Golden Knights, and if you thought they were going to reject it just because the economy is collapsing and hundreds of thousands of people may die, you really must be new to this site:

The Henderson City Council voted 4-1 today to approve $60 million in bonds to finance an arena for the Golden Knights’ new American Hockey League affiliate…

Councilman Dan Stewart suggested waiting six months to see how the economy shapes up before considering adding debt.

“If there is no immediate need for these bonds, why even consider the sale of them at this time?” Stewart said.

Most of the public comment was on his side, with about double the number of commenters opposed to the bonds compared to those in favor.

(I know what you’re probably wondering here: How was there public comment when Nevada is under a lockdown prohibiting gatherings of more than 10 people? Maybe they decided to allow city council meetings to resume, and will just start shutting down whichever ones start leading to mass die-offs?)

The new Henderson team would be the relocated San Antonio Rampage AHL team, which the Golden Knights bought in February with the intention of moving them closer to their NHL club. As discussed yesterday, only about $30 million of the bond money is expected to go to arena construction, though it’s not clear whether some of the other “improvements” it would fund are arena-related as well. And the council still has to vote on the arena project itself now that the financing has been approved, though if they voted 4-1 to approve this amid public outcry, it certainly doesn’t bode well for the council suddenly playing hardball when it’s time for the followup vote. I guess at least it’s nice to see that some things are already returning to normal despite the pandemic, though honestly I would have taken “unemployment rates under 20 percent” ahead of this.

 

 

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.