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Thursday, May 24, 2012
City officials merging plans for arena, transit center
by Suzanne Hurt, published on July 13, 2011 at 6:22 PM
Storyline: Arena
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Sacramento officials believe a new arena can be integrated with a future regional transit center in the historic downtown railyards – making this one of the country's most eco-friendly sports and entertainment facilities, Assistant City Manager John Dangberg said Tuesday.
At Tuesday night's City Council meeting, Dangberg gave council members a status report nearly halfway into a 100-day technical review of a proposed arena. The $387 million project is on an expedited schedule to be in operation by May 2015.
One of the most critical issues being reviewed is the need to coordinate construction of an arena with the previously planned transit center. Both structures would be built on a site constrained by railroad tracks to the north, the freeway to the west, I Street to the south and downtown buildings to the east.
Building two "very intense pieces of infrastructure" on the 33-acre site poses challenges, partly because they are both so big, Dangberg said.
"We believe we can integrate these two," he said. "If and when we successfully do that, we have the opportunity to create one of the most sustainable, green, interesting entertainment and sports facilities in the country, if we can successfully integrate these uses and have transit right there at the facility and many modes of transit right there," Dangberg said.
The city has set up technical review teams that are focused on the site itself. The teams are looking at transportation and transit issues, community development issues, economic development and how to reuse the Power Balance Pavilion site.
A town hall meeting on the future of the Natomas site is scheduled for Aug. 11, at a time and place to be announced.
Mayor Kevin Johnson's office and his arena committee, Think BIG Sacramento, are working on financing options with support from a consultant, Barrett Sports Group, and a finance team made up of staff from the city treasurer's office and Goldman Sachs.
The city is also looking at urban design issues with the goal of preserving and playing up historic assets at the site, such as the Sacramento Valley Station historic train depot, the Railway Express Agency Building and the historic Southern Pacific Railroad central shops.
City staff wants to create a legacy project that uses urban design elements to connect to those assets and new opportunities for downtown revitalization, he said.
"We have a very, very rich history on the site as the terminus of the Transcontinental (Railroad). And we need to treat it in a very special way that creates a development that is uniquely Sacramento and distinctly Sacramento," Dangberg said.
"It is not another disposable arena that we see in so many cities, but something that will be here for many, many decades or a hundred years as our central shops have remained in place and really a permanent part of our urban fabric and history,” he added.
For example, city staff wants to keep key site lines between the central shops and the depot and take other steps to ensure historical compatibility throughout the project, he added.
A downtown location without a large addition of surface parking on-site will allow the city and businesses to create a "street-to-seat" experience. By using existing parking located away from the site, people will see restaurants, bars, shops and establishments with entertainment on their way to the facility. This would provide more opportunities to stay downtown before and after games and other events. This is expected to help revitalize and activate downtown, a key element of the project, he said.
"If we don't achieve that with the amount of investment that we're putting into this, we might as well not bother putting it in the downtown," Dangberg said.
City staff will present the 100-day technical review on Sept. 13, rather than Sept. 6, because of the Labor Day holiday.
At that time, staff will discuss predevelopment costs the city will incur and provide a critical path and preliminary schedule to the City Council. Dangberg also has been talking with the city attorney about the process to select a development team. Think BIG Sacramento will provide a list of financing options.
Johnson's chief of staff, Kunal Merchant, gave a presentation on the mayor's arena committee, Think BIG Sacramento, and an update on the group's work.
Think BIG Sacramento is a 72-person committee brought together to facilitate arena development before the National Basketball Association's March 1, 2012, deadline for teams to file for relocation next year, he said.
An estimated 3,700 temporary construction jobs and 400 jobs for facility operation are expected to be created by the project, he said.
However, Sacramento resident Mac Worthy, one of two people who provided public comments on the issue at City Hall Tuesday, called into question the number of jobs the project would bring and predicted civil unrest if more people don't get jobs and improve their living conditions soon.
"We need jobs here. This thing ain't going to give us no jobs," he said. "The next two years (are) going to be the critical part, here…. Wake up, people. People (are) tired of being down, without a roof over their head, without enough money to go to the grocery store and buy food, can't even buy gas."
Think BIG Sacramento will host a four-county bus tour and town hall meeting Thursday to tell regional residents about the possible benefits of a new arena. A "Capitol Corridor Impact Report" will also be released.
The tour will start at 10 a.m. at the California Welcome Center, 2085 Vine St. in El Dorado Hills, then make stops in Davis and Roseville. A town hall meeting at 3:30 p.m. at Vision Service Plan, 3333 Quality Drive in Rancho Cordova, will be the last stop, according to a press advisory sent out Wednesday afternoon.
Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Twitter @SuzanneHurt.
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Unemployment in construction is 21.2%, I wish these guys would tell the truth. We all need to education ourself in this tough market only way is a degree or change your career.. search online for "High Speed University" for career advice
If the idea here is to somehow capture federal or state transportation dollars to help pay for part of the arena structure, then pretty much everything we've seen so far is just pretty pictures. If the plan here is to build the transit center and the arena "across the street" from each other, I can't see much point in a merger. But in either case, does the Sept 8 deadline fit any more?
I almost sense a bit of panic here. And you have to look at history to see why. How many times have they kicked the can down the road on this? Three month studies; year-long studies; 90 day studies; 100 day studies. And now this.
March 1, 2012 is coming up really fast. It won't be very long before we're celebrating T-Day and exchanging Christmas presents. Given that we almost certainly have to squeeze in an election to pass any rental car or hotel tax hikes, March 1 looks problematic. Someone's going to have to explain to me why this large a scope change exactly halfway through the current 100 day Think Big project helps expedite the process. I don't see how it does expedite the process. While it might not slow it down, it sure doesn't expedite it.
Oh well, they got themselves into this. 100 days would have been more than adequate to come up with a Natomas plan. Coming up with a transit center/arena at the rail yard location by Sept 8 seems like a pipe-dream to me.
And don't even get me started on the parking they envision for this.
It seems likely that he will seek a way to appropriate land, infrastructure and expense relief from the transit project for the benefit of the NBA, while minimally accomodating the transit project requirements.
Wanna bet that the plan will be to build the new Kings' arena first, and defer the transit project until a later date. Look for the 1/2% sales tax tied to the transit center "intermingled" with funding the NBA. That's the key to his insistence on building downtown.
Bottom line is to redirect the land, improvements and tax revenue stream from public transit to basketball.
As always fans of professional sports will support taking resources planned to benefit lower income citizens so as to build a playpen for the sports team's billionaire owners and millionaire players.
I'm more intrigued by the mention of Goldman Sachs. I understand they helped Louisville finance their arena. How is that doing?
Taken from http://www.fieldofschemes.com/news/archives/2011/05/4537_goldman_touts_l.html :
"May 04, 2011
Goldman Sachs touts Louisville arena as part of its plan to eat humanity's face do good deeds
If you read the kind of publications that Goldman Sachs advertises in, you may have noticed some ads from the vampire squid touting its role in helping save Louisville by selling bonds for its new basketball arena. (There's a Goldman-created video, too.) As the San Francisco Chronicle's David Sirota picks up the story:
As Goldman's ad tells it, Louisville's major problem was its need for a new arena. That's when the bank swooped in with a "financing strategy" to build the stadium, which then supposedly led to "a vibrant downtown scene, where new businesses are opening (and) existing businesses are expanding."
The only problem, writes Sirota: "If you do bother to click around the Internet, you'll inevitably find that the Louisville economic picture is anything but 'vibrant.' Today, the city is suffering from an 11 percent unemployment rate and a $22 million budget shortfall." He also cites the article we mentioned last fall that noted that Louisville's TIF district wasn't generating enough tax revenues to pay for the arena construction costs, which would leave the city having to dip into general funds to pay off those Goldman bonds.
And it gets even worse, according to Insider Louisville's Terry Boyd:
The truth is even weirder: Goldman Sachs fell short of being able to place all the arena bonds.
It was in fact Louisville-based brokerage Hilliard Lyons that saved the day, placing the highest-risk, lowest rated piece of the arena debt.
How do I know? I wrote the story for Business First last year.
Concludes Boyd: "We'll find out pretty soon if the arena's revenue will match our collective debt obligation. But one thing is for sure — you can bet Goldman Sachs makes money no matter what happens to tax payers.""
How likely are we to actually build a transit center? Is building the transit center dependent on the California High Speed Rail being completed?
If so that's problematic since there is a chance that money will run out for the project before it ever hits Phase 2, where it is expected to come to Sacramento.
It's smart to plan for an intermodal transit center only if it's realistic one will actually be completed in the next 20 years.