I agree that Cal Expo would be a horrible location. But I can see CalExpos financial probems as exactly a reason they'd be interested in a deal. Give up a portion of 400 acres by selling the land or just gain an annual revenue stream through a long-term lease of land. Either would go a long way to financing the major facelift they want to do at Cal Expo.
http://basketball.ballparks.com/
Arco II cost $40 million to build and "we" didn't even finance Arco to begin with. Not one dime of public money was used to build Arco I or II. That was part of the problem. It was built so cheaply, it had built in obsolescence. The Palace of Auburn hills was built about the same time. It cost $70 million to build and that's a big part of the reason that arena in still very viable and Arco isn't. They spent 75% more than was spent on Arco. The ownership group here was pretty much tapped out just buying the franchise.
The City did loan the ownership $70 million (mid 90's?). The ownership is ahead of schedule on the payments. (The ownership did not change, the Maloofs just bought a majority interest, I believe 51%.)
Why did the city loan $70 million? Because the team was doing so poorly, they were on the verge of bankruptcy. Basically expenses (including debt service on loan to build arena) higher than revenue. The loan was to try and help the team stay in Sac rather than being sold to out-of-towners, who might move the team. It turned out that some owners still had to sell and hope new owners could do better.
Well, my point is that NBA finances have radically changed since 1987, while Sacramento's financial standing hasn't changed nearly as quickly. It's just very, very hard for this area to fund this project.
In a way, it's a little like Auburn Dam. Studies showed that because of the size of that river, combined with the size of the dam it would take to generate electricity there, that electricity and that water would be the most expensive water and electricity ever, to the point where no one would buy it... And the equation just keeps getting worse as time goes forward.
So, you know, we build a new arena for $1 billion (rather, we reject it), and come back 3 years later to find that it's now $2 billion. All that really shows is that a bad deal today could turn out to be a horrible deal down the road.
We'd never cover the $1 billion by hosting graduations and Sesame Street Live, in other words. That's the sad part here; if we reject a bad deal now, it's even easier to reject a worse deal later.
I kind of view this as an inevitable path, unfortunately.
Did anyone else see the growth projections for California from last Monday? LA county is projected to have about 4 times the growth of Sacramento county. In the next 25 years, they're projected to grow by about 3.5 million; their growth will exceed our population. And that doesn't talk about surrounding counties.
The point being, that's the kind of area that WILL be able to have more pro sports teams. If Sac County's growth is a mere 900,000 in that time, we will not be able to compete. We'll just get outbid. In the meantime, the State has to worry about where those extra 3.5 million will get electricity, water, transit, and so forth.
(I already hate LA. Imagine adding 3.5 million people to the mix. Has "Blade Runner" written all over it.)
Just adding some perspective... Funding an arena is way, way down on the State's list of priorities. Honestly, I don't think that's a productive approach.
It probably has to be at least 75% privately funded for the voters to approve it.
Meanwhile, there is more progress in Vegas:
http://www.cpnonline.com/cpn/property_type/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003602512
I also found this article to be interesting:
http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/25145
AEG is going ahead, regardless. Privately funded.
Nice study in contrasts, between LV and Sac. Sac can't find a solution, while Vegas has at least 6 companies that want to build an arena. What's more, while we appear to be headed to zero arenas, Vegas may end up with at least two.
