Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash Walken
But they are going to use the revenue from a denser community population to finance it.
A big empty stadium doesn't produce the necessary revenue for the city.
For me, that's the whole point of the conversation and pretty much what makes this an unattractive development for the city. There is tremendous onus on the city to give up tax base to incentive construction for an arena district that won't generate the city the same kind of revenues you'd expect to make the development worth it.
If it's going to cost the city 1 billion to clean up the site, improve the traffic infrastructure and develop the land for a stadium, they'd be better off paying an expansion fee and plunking an Arena down somewhere else that was less costly to develop, and then using the revenue from the team to pay those costs down. At least then they'd get the full revenue from the club which last year equated to roughly 70 million dollars.
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People (not saying you specifically) argue that
a) these types of projects don't stimulate new growth, it only causes that growth to move from somewhere else, and
b) it would generate more taxes with residential growth, as opposed to a big empty box like an arena.
First, you can't have it both ways: if a) is in fact true (which I don't think is an absolute but is more a function of location and specifics), then it is also true that those residual developments will still happen, just elsewhere.
In fact, I think one can say with certainty that if there is need for more residential development, it will happen - regardless of this project.
So that brings us to commercial development. And in an area such as this, with little to no current investment in bars, restaurants, etc, it is an extremely safe bet that the project would in fact stimulate extra investment in the surrounding area.
And I would go on to argue that the presence of the arena would further stimulate the current trend (and city desire) for more urban living (further guaranteeing that those residential complexes that you think would be lost, would in fact be built elsewhere).