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Originally Posted by sirkingwilliam
I’m not sure you understand history as well as you think you do. The ATT Center didn’t get built downtown or in the urban core because of “negative nabobs”, whatever that means.
It’s a lot more complicated than that and a major reason for it not being built downtown was Peter Holts not wanting it too close to the Riverwalk as he feared it would pull potential in arena spending on food and drinks. But there were other things that stalled and ultimately led to the arena being built on county land.
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Your are only somewhat correct. The city leaders at the time were afraid of putting a tax to a vote. The County always wanted the AT&T Center by the Coliseum, along with the councilman of that district at the time, Mario Salas.
The county tried to work with the city, but the city was not interested, so the county put the hotel tax to a vote, and of course it passed in a landslide, which is funny, because up to the day of the vote, polls showed the vote to be a tossup,or even for the initiative to fail.
The city, and Howard Peak in particular, were not up to the task of standing up to a few anti-tax blue hairs, COPS, and Metro Alliance, that were very vocal at the time, and that is just a fact. Your Peter Holt assertion would need some justification other than your say so. It is more likely that Cindi Krier was in his ear every day, touting the County plan.
And if you don't know what a "nabob" is, buy a dictionary.