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-   -   SAN DIEGO | Boom Rundown, Vol. 2 (https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=126473)

Fusey Dec 26, 2009 4:53 PM

I stand corrected. The last I heard anything about Lane Field was that Coastal Commission decision from a year or so ago.

Marina_Guy Dec 28, 2009 9:55 PM

Merry Christmas from the NYTimes
 
December 25, 2009
Stadium Boom Deepens Municipal Woes

By KEN BELSON
CINCINNATI — Years after a wave of construction brought publicly financed stadiums costing billions of dollars to cities across the country, taxpayers are once again being asked to reach into their pockets.

From New Jersey to Ohio to Arizona, the stadiums were sold as a key to redevelopment and as the only way to retain sports franchises. But the deals that were used to persuade taxpayers to finance their construction have in many cases backfired, the result of overly optimistic revenue assumptions and the recession.

Nowhere is the problem more acute than in Cincinnati. In 1996, voters in Hamilton County approved an increase of half of one percent in the sales tax that promised to build and maintain stadiums for the Bengals and the Reds, pay Cincinnati’s public schools and give homeowners an annual property tax rebate. The stadiums were supposed to spur development of the city’s dilapidated riverfront.

But sales tax receipts have fallen so fast in the last year that the county is now scrambling to bridge a $14 million deficit in its sales tax fund. The public schools, which deferred taking their share for years, want their money.

The teams have not volunteered to rewrite their leases. So in the coming weeks, the county plans to cut basic services, lower its legal bills and drain a bond reserve fund with no plan for paying it back.

“Anyone looking at this objectively knows it’s a train wreck,” said Dusty Rhodes, the county auditor. “I told them they were making a big mistake, but they didn’t want to hear me.”

Cincinnati is hardly alone. In Indianapolis, the Capital Improvement Board spent 2009 trying to find $32 million to run the Lucas Oil Stadium and convention center. In Milwaukee, a drop in sales tax receipts may delay by several years the date for paying off the bonds issued to build Miller Park, the home of the Brewers.

Columbus, Ohio, is considering using public money to keep the Blue Jackets in town. Glendale, Ariz., has fought to hold the Phoenix Coyotes to their long-term lease. In New Jersey, a ticket surcharge may be added to help resolve a tenant-landlord dispute between the Devils and Newark.

Mark Rosentraub, the author of the book “Major League Losers,” said that many of the stadium deals included “revenue bombs,” with financial traps like balloon payments on debt in later years and sweeteners like the Hamilton County property tax rebate to win public support.

In many cases, the architects of the deals are long gone by the time the bill comes due.

“This is one of the effects of the economic tsunami sweeping through,” Rosentraub said of the deficits.

The 1996 proposal to build stadiums for the Bengals and the Reds had plenty of proponents. The economy was growing, Riverfront Stadium was outdated and the Bengals were hinting that they would move, as the Browns had done.

The plan went awry almost from the start. The football stadium exceeded its budget by $50 million, forcing the county to issue more bonds. Forecasts for growth in the sales tax turned out to be too rosy. The teams received sweetheart leases. In 2000, voters threw out the county commissioners who cut the deal.

That year the sales tax grew 1.8 percent, the first of many years below the 3 percent forecast. Both stadiums were originally expected to cost $500 million combined. Yet Paul Brown Stadium alone cost $455 million and the Great American Ballpark, the Reds’ home a few hundred yards down the Ohio River, cost $337 million by the time it opened in 2003.

The generous deal for the Bengals has been a sore spot. The team had to pay rent only through 2009 on its 26-year lease, and has to cover the cost of running the stadium only for game days. Starting in 2017, the county will reimburse the team for these costs, too. The county will pay $8.5 million this year to keep the stadium going.

The Bengals keep revenue from naming rights, advertising, tickets, suites and most parking. If the county wants to recoup money by taxing tickets, concessions or parking, it needs the team’s approval.

Compared with the lucrative deals for teams in Baltimore, St. Louis and elsewhere, the Bengals won a particularly lopsided lease.

Bob Bedinghaus, the commissioner who spearheaded the stadium project, said as much in 2000.

“They’re an organization that’s run by lawyers, and they look for every penny around every corner,” he told The Cincinnati Enquirer. “It’s going to be a difficult relationship going forward for the next 30 years.”

Bedinghaus lost his re-election bid soon after. He now works as the Bengals’ director of stadium development. Through a team spokesman, Bedinghaus declined to be interviewed. The Bengals also declined to comment. Several telephone and e-mail attempts to reach the Reds’ management were unsuccessful.

Hamilton County started using some of the proceeds from the sales tax fund to jump-start construction of a redevelopment district with the stadiums as bookends. After years of delays, cranes dot the riverfront that will eventually include a hotel, shops and hundreds of homes.

Critics like Rhodes contend that the tax was never meant to pay for the real estate project. But Cincinnati business leaders, eager to reverse the flow of money to the suburbs, say the stadiums were just the beginning of a transformation of the riverfront.

“We need to build this neighborhood so that it becomes the center of someplace you want to go,” said Thomas L. Gabelman, the outside counsel for the county on the riverfront development.

Gabelman said that most of the money for the $1.2 billion project comes from federal and state grants and private financing. No more than $3 million annually comes from the sales tax fund, which brings in about $60 million a year.

Problems persist. In 2004, Todd Portune, the commissioner who unseated Bedinghaus, sued unsuccessfully to change the Bengals’ lease. In 2006, the Cincinnati public schools agreed to defer their payments from the sales tax fund for three years to help cover shortfalls.

Still, the gap between expected and actual sales taxes continues to grow, something the county administration had been warning for years. In August, the administrator predicted not only a $14 million shortfall next year, but also a $94 million gap in 2014, a year after interest payments on the stadium bonds rise 44 percent. By then, the Reds will no longer be paying rent.

Last month, two of the three commissioners voted against cutting the property tax rebate, fearing a voter backlash. Raising the sales tax again was not proposed for the same reason.

“It can’t be 100 percent on the backs of taxpayers,” said Greg Hartmann, the lone Republican commissioner. “We gave away too much to keep the Bengals in Cincinnati. There has to be some middle ground.”

Hartmann and Portune want to introduce a tobacco tax, but lawmakers in Columbus, the state capital, may be unwilling to approve it.

So they have ordered more cuts in basic county administrative services, something that creates a slippery slope, said David Pepper, the commissioner who voted against the proposal.

“It’s like the movie where the blob keeps growing and eating away at other elements of county government,” Pepper said. “We’re beginning to cross a line in the sand by taking money from the general fund to pay for the stadiums. Once you put that money in jeopardy, you put the whole county at risk.”

HurricaneHugo Dec 29, 2009 6:23 AM

Have the Charger even said how much they need from public funds?

kpexpress Dec 29, 2009 8:16 AM

I heard the NFL will put up 200 million, so deduct what the team is willing to out forth from the cost (600-900 million).

Are these numbers wrong? Anyone?

dl3000 Dec 29, 2009 5:59 PM

Well we're looking at $1.3+ billion for the whole facility minus legal costs and all that stuff that slows it down. I read the 1 billion plus a couple hundred million somewhere. Nobody has said specific numbers of public input to my knowledge, Fabiani just said there would be some. Did not know the NFL contribution.

staplesla Dec 29, 2009 6:29 PM

I just think it is way too early to talk about $'s. We need to wait for the reviews and designs to be done before anything will be known for sure.

tdavis Dec 30, 2009 1:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dl3000 (Post 4626717)
Well we're looking at $1.3+ billion for the whole facility minus legal costs and all that stuff that slows it down. I read the 1 billion plus a couple hundred million somewhere. Nobody has said specific numbers of public input to my knowledge, Fabiani just said there would be some. Did not know the NFL contribution.

$1.3 billion is ridiculous. The Cowboys stadium (arguably the most advanced of its time) cost $1.15 billion, and you think the SD stadium will cost more? The stadium here will be smaller, most likely won't have the multi-million dollar, record breaking in size video screens, and won't have all of the amenities (restaurants, sport shops), etc.

Lets just wait for the final projections before stating inaccurate numbers.

SDDTProspector Dec 30, 2009 2:17 AM

Stadium costs
 
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2009/dec/11...site-downtown/

An edition of the "round table", stated that the stadium would cost beween.. 500 to 700 million to build d-town.... about 200 million cheaper than other locations in San Diego County... Because of existing infrastructure in place ... We shall see, what I figure we shall see soon within a couple of months.... God, I hope its not 1.3 Billion....

Also, read that the NFL would contribute 200 million to the pot

dl3000 Dec 30, 2009 7:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tdavis (Post 4627455)
$1.3 billion is ridiculous. The Cowboys stadium (arguably the most advanced of its time) cost $1.15 billion, and you think the SD stadium will cost more? The stadium here will be smaller, most likely won't have the multi-million dollar, record breaking in size video screens, and won't have all of the amenities (restaurants, sport shops), etc.

Lets just wait for the final projections before stating inaccurate numbers.

Whoa...chill. I remember seeing over a billion quoted on San Diego before. Nobody's memory is perfect and I did not say I was some sort of an expert, I am just recalling what I read. Jeez relax, this forum has no effect on decision making, we are here to discuss, speculate, and share ideas. The costs of building a stadium will certainly not go down and rural Texas is different than Downtown California not to mention site decontamination, which is not MTS's job alone. The video screens most likely did not have a major impact on the cost of the facility if you look at it overall. They just get the most hype. No matter what, a stadium will have large screens, Dallas' are just about 60% larger.

HurricaneHugo Dec 30, 2009 7:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SDDTProspector (Post 4627519)
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2009/dec/11...site-downtown/

An edition of the "round table", stated that the stadium would cost beween.. 500 to 700 million to build d-town.... about 200 million cheaper than other locations in San Diego County... Because of existing infrastructure in place ... We shall see, what I figure we shall see soon within a couple of months.... God, I hope its not 1.3 Billion....

Also, read that the NFL would contribute 200 million to the pot

Let's say that it'll go over budget and end up around 850 million total..

-200 from the NFL

-600-900 from the Chargers

= 50- 0 from the city.

50 million is a small drop IMO and worth it :tup:

dl3000 Dec 30, 2009 7:33 AM

Ok this article came from the post by staplesla way back that referenced this topic
"Fabiani said a stadium could be built downtown for $700 million to $800 million. Earlier plans had the Chargers and the National Football League contributing $200 million apiece to a stadium, and the gap bridged by revenue from nearby ancillary development, such as hotels, condominiums and retail.

The team is dismissing that concept because of the poor economy and the small size of the downtown site, which is bounded by 14th, 16th and K streets and Imperial Avenue. Plans call for a 62,000-seat stadium that could be expanded to 72,000 seats to accommodate Super Bowls. It would abut the street, with little room for other development."

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2...money-stadium/




So there. I'm no estimator, but I still say they are lowballing that $800M.

tdavis Dec 30, 2009 6:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dl3000 (Post 4627877)
Ok this article came from the post by staplesla way back that referenced this topic
"Fabiani said a stadium could be built downtown for $700 million to $800 million. Earlier plans had the Chargers and the National Football League contributing $200 million apiece to a stadium, and the gap bridged by revenue from nearby ancillary development, such as hotels, condominiums and retail.

The team is dismissing that concept because of the poor economy and the small size of the downtown site, which is bounded by 14th, 16th and K streets and Imperial Avenue. Plans call for a 62,000-seat stadium that could be expanded to 72,000 seats to accommodate Super Bowls. It would abut the street, with little room for other development."

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2...money-stadium/

So there. I'm no estimator, but I still say they are lowballing that $800M.

No where does it say that the SD stadium would cost over a billion, that's just your own speculation. As a project engineer I deal with these projects on a daily basis and it's just ridiculous to state numbers like this as fact. There is no way with the scaling down this stadium will need due to space constraints that it will cost more than the Cowboys stadium.

SD_Phil Dec 30, 2009 7:27 PM

So....who felt it?


link

Derek Dec 30, 2009 7:46 PM

I did. :ack:

HurricaneHugo Dec 30, 2009 9:17 PM

I was at the Holiday Bowl Parade and was wondering why the ground was moving after the floats stopped. O_o

QuarterMileSidewalk Dec 31, 2009 5:48 AM

California has a built-in roller coaster... Fun!

I didn't feel it up in San Berdoo, but I saw a couple of news bits on it.

kpexpress Dec 31, 2009 9:55 AM

I slept right through it, guests at the hotel my wife works at felt it

tdavis Dec 31, 2009 5:27 PM

The shaking in La Jolla lasted about 20 seconds. It was enough for the chandelier to sway, and for the shades to rattle against the windows.

Marina_Guy Dec 31, 2009 10:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tdavis (Post 4628318)
No where does it say that the SD stadium would cost over a billion, that's just your own speculation. As a project engineer I deal with these projects on a daily basis and it's just ridiculous to state numbers like this as fact. There is no way with the scaling down this stadium will need due to space constraints that it will cost more than the Cowboys stadium.

Hmmm.. you deal with Stadiums everyday, huh. I missed all these new stadiums going up. I think it is much cheaper to build in Dallas than San Diego/California.

tdavis Dec 31, 2009 11:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marina_Guy (Post 4630268)
Hmmm.. you deal with Stadiums everyday, huh. I missed all these new stadiums going up. I think it is much cheaper to build in Dallas than San Diego/California.

sorry, I meant large scale/urban development.


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