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Originally Posted by BG918
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Good question!
And I'm 100% sure the answer is YES! At least, there's no reason why, like almost every other professional sports owner in the country, Kroenke wouldn't make a go at getting the taxpayers to pay for a new arena. It's well established that having someone else pay for all of your principle capital expenditures will really help make your business more profitable.
Would Denver pay for it? Would the taxpayers approve it? I'm not sure it could pass in Denver. I see a few options:
1. Kroenke pays for all of the cost of the new arena structure, but gets some significant commitment from the City to pay some contributing costs, such as for infrastructure improvements.
2. Kroenke and city agree on a split, with Kroenke city paying somewhere between 40 to 60 percent (similar to what's been done in other cities).
3. City goes the "stadium district" route and argues any tax payer subsidy needs to be metro wide, not just Denver.
I'm not sure how much leverage Kroenke has. Would he move the facility outside of Denver proper? Would he move both Nuggets and Avalanche to a new state/Canada?
Would any Denver suburb "step up" in Denver's place and come up with enough cash to get him to move? (This has happened in other cities). Denver 'burbs are pretty fragmented, and with the possible exception of Aurora, I don't know that any one of them has the means to do that (and would their taxpayers support it?). Would moving to Aurora (or Centennial, or Lone Tree) make sense from an attendance perspective ? (Probably not).
Moving out of state of course is the classic threat that pro sports owners use to "extract" financial payments from government to supplement their business. Not sure how realistic that is for the Nuggets/Avalanche.
To me a reasonable option is for "some" taxpayer support for a facility that would get utilized for many different purposes, with Kroenke paying at least 50%. Of course, if local government(s) can get Kroenke to pay for everything then great.
Also, when will the Pepsi Center need to be replaced? Need is in the eye of the beholder, and no doubt the Pepsi Center with maintenance could continue to serve for another generation, though typically that's not how professional sport owners think (already, two baseball stadiums newer than Coors Field have been replaced!). Also, Pepsi Center is already at the age (20 years) at which it's predecessor - McNichols Arena - was replaced by the Pepsi Center. Though the Rockies just signed up for a 30 years lease on a Coors Field that is even older than the Pepsi Center, suffice to say "Pepsi Center is no Coors Field."
The unique situation of River Mile plays into this too.... potentially Kroenke would have the ability to build a new arena that includes very substantial office, hotel, and even residential, which potentially changes the $$ math on what makes sense as far as location. In fact, this is exactly what Kroenke has done with the new LA Rams stadium @ Hollywood Park:
https://www.bdcnetwork.com/sports-te...-their-anchors
The 70,240-seat stadium on 60 acres will be home field for the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers pro football franchises. The facility would be expandable to 100,000 seats for mega events like the Olympics. And it will anchor the Los Angeles Stadium and Entertainment District (LASED), a redevelopment of the old Hollywood Park racetrack that’s being spearheaded by the Rams’ owner, developer Stan Kroenke, whose St. Louis-based Kroenke Group acquired the entire property in 2015.
The estimated cost of this privately financed complex has climbed to at least $5 billion. Plans for the district include 890,000 sf of retail space, 780,000 sf of office space, 300 hotel rooms, 2,500 residences, a 6,000-seat performing arts venue, a TV studio, restaurants, conference spaces, and 25 acres of public parks.
Denver isn't LA. On the other hand the River Mile is a much more central and urban location than Hollywood Park, so potentially a new arena properly integrated with the mixed use of the rest of River Mile could really have some synergy.