Mark Kreidler: Here He Comes....

Warhawk

The cake is a lie.
Staff member
#1
Nice article in today's Bee about Art Savage and his involvement with the new arena discussions. WAY too long to type out, and I cannot find it online right now. Everyone keep an eye out and see if you can find it....

Edit:

found it:

http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/story/14235277p-15056595c.html

River Cats CEO Savage leads downtown arena push

First of all, he neither looks nor sounds insane, nor even particularly removed from reality. When Art Savage speaks, he fairly radiates authority, competence and good humor.
And, on the other hand, there is this:

* Arena construction featuring sports teams is inherently difficult.

* Arena construction with the "billionaire" Maloofs injected into the equation becomes an emotional blowtorch of an issue around Sacramento.

* Several worthy men and women already have been sent away from the table, shoulders slumped, with no new deal in sight.

It's a veritable boneyard of failure, the whole arena issue in Sacramento. Don Quixote would think twice about going in, and he tilted at windmills for a living.
Art Savage? He's suddenly the man riding straight into the fan blades.

Working mostly out of the public view, Savage, the River Cats' chief executive, has emerged as the leader of a new movement toward construction of a downtown arena that would become the region's major arts and sports venue. It is a movement that already has included enough stops and starts to qualify it as an early-stage saga.

Unlike some of his predecessors, though, Savage brings a gravitas to the situation based upon his own history. He is a man whose business muscles have been developed over the years for precisely this kind of effort. He knows how to get sports facilities built, or at least he knows how he has helped get them built in the past.

And Savage and the people who support him say that one of the first orders of business also is one of the most daunting: trying to reframe the public discussion in such a way that it moves the Maloofs either to the side or out of the conversation entirely, however temporary that condition may be.

"Over time, it became a story of, 'Well, we're going to take care of the billionaire Maloofs,' " said Roger Dickinson, a Sacramento County supervisor working with Savage on the new attempt. "What I've tried to say is that this isn't about the Maloofs - it's about us.

"The question is, what do we want? I think we deserve a first-class arts and entertainment facility. We deserve the best. We deserve to see the best."

And somebody has to pay for that.

Which brings us, almost immediately, back to Savage.

If you meander through previous failed and aborted attempts at making headway on an arena, they tend to dissolve into a giant game of "Who's the Financer?" Arena deals principally are about financing mechanisms and money obligations, with most other questions - Who will use the building? Who keeps what revenue? Why should I pay a penny? - coming naturally from those topics.

The city wants in, but only at limited exposure. The Maloofs have said they'll contribute a fair share without delineating what that share might be. Some of the more fanciful financing mechanisms such as land sales and accelerated development deals have projected money on the back ends of the deals, when what is called for is upfront money to get construction under way.

Savage, who declined to be interviewed for this story, has a background that suggests that, while there may be no single answer to the money question, it isn't a hopeless one to ponder.

His first taste of the sports/entertainment building process came in Cleveland, where Savage worked for the Gund family as it planned and began building the downtown arena that housed the NBA franchise it owned. Once called Gund Arena, the place now is known as Quicken Loans Arena, and the Gunds no longer own the Cavaliers.

When the Gunds took over the expansion Sharks hockey team, Savage, who lived in Lafayette, came aboard in 1990 as chief executive and helped facilitate construction of San Jose Arena, now known as HP Pavilion. Sacramentans, of course, know Savage as the man who brought the River Cats to West Sacramento in 2000 and got Raley Field built in time to host what has become a model - and profitable - minor-league baseball franchise.

Both the San Jose and West Sacramento concepts may yet prove instructive. San Jose Arena, which opened in 1993, cost $162.5 million - and all but $30 million of that came from the city of San Jose through its redevelopment agency, which saw the arena as a means of reviving a dilapidated business corridor along Santa Clara Street.

For the construction of Raley Field, Savage and business partner Warren Smith worked with local politicians, including Dickinson, on a deal in which Sacramento County and West Sacramento helped float $40 million in bonds. The bonds are not to be repaid with public money, though, but through stadium revenues, which the River Cats control as the ballpark's private owner.

This time, parts of both mechanisms may come into play, though exactly how isn't clear, and a financer for construction costs has not been identified. Still, Savage's involvement has rekindled interest among some of those with the most reason to be discouraged by past failures.

"A lot of us feel like we're not going to have too many more cracks at this," said Rob Fong, the Sacramento city councilman who has been almost constantly involved in arena discussions over the past few years.

"I'm certainly working with Art, and we're trying to keep things fairly quiet at this point," Fong said. "There is a time frame that we need to be sensitive to, and there are issues - but I don't think any of them are insurmountable."

The time frame to which Fong referred may have more to do with the Kings than anything else. In general, the Maloofs' desire for a new venue for the Kings within the next few years has driven the arena conversation - for better and, often, for worse.

Since tussling with local officials in 2004 and claiming they were sandbagged at a City Council meeting by an unexpected cost ceiling, both Joe and Gavin Maloof essentially have maintained a studied distance from anything relating to a new arena in Sacramento. Asked last week about Savage's involvement in a new push for a deal, Joe Maloof sounded surprised.

"But it makes sense that Joe wouldn't know about that yet, because so far there isn't a lot to tell," said John Thomas, the Kings' president of business operations.

Thomas said he was aware of the new effort and looked forward to sitting down with Savage and others sometime in the next few weeks, adding that the Kings are "willing to consider anything" that might lead to a resolution. Still, several of those outside the Kings organization have made it clear that they favor a new arena for the city and the region, not the Kings specifically.

This may prove a crucial distinction. In private conversations, two of the principal architects of past arena plans said they were stymied by the Kings' insistence on a $400 million facility, a seemingly arbitrary number that franchise officials have said represents the kind of venue and game experience they need to compete for the discretionary income of their fans.

On their own, the region's residents and politicians may decide they can build a first-rate facility for well less than that. At the same time, Fong left little question that the Maloofs' opinions ought to matter tremendously in the process.

"It's important to the city and the region that the Kings remain a part of us," Fong said. "It is a priority for me, and it's a priority for the city."

Sacramento Mayor Heather Fargo last week threw her support behind Savage's participation - especially, she said, if it yields a plan for a downtown arena that includes funding from different sources.

"If there's a way to come up with a regional solution, meaning that people around the region help pay for it, then that's something that we want to explore," Fargo said. "Part of that is getting it done in the right location."

Indeed, most of those on the front stages of this effort are pointing toward a downtown location with easy mass-transit access. The latest development plan for the former Union Pacific railyard area includes room for a sports/entertainment facility, but it does not mention how one might actually be financed.

It was the funding question that undid a number of previous efforts. The Kings and the city of Sacramento walked away from each other, pointing fingers over price and respective contributions. A Natomas plan to skim profits off accelerated land development fell apart when one of the controlling families, the Oses, pulled out. A similar deal worked on for a year by developer Angelo Tsakopoulos and Kings emissaries Bob Hernreich and Thomas was shot down as unrealistic and unwieldy.

Enter Savage - and none too soon, say some who have worked with him. Depending upon who is telling the story, Savage either was corraled into lending his expertise to the issue or has waited for the past two years for the right moment to jump in, but his presence apparently is welcome.

"He's being a good public citizen here," Fargo said. "He doesn't have to do this."

Indeed, what Savage would get out of the deal is difficult to pinpoint, aside from perhaps a developer's fee. He said last week he would not operate a downtown arena the way his company controls Raley Field, because such is not the business model for the larger venues. They tend to be run by offshoot companies of their largest tenants, as is the case with the Sharks' venue.

Then again, Savage and his wife, Susan, have made Sacramento their home, and Savage understands the business implication of having two thriving sports franchises in the area: It keeps people thinking of sports as a valid way to spend their time and money.

Savage has allies. Tom Glick, a former River Cats executive, spent two years at NBA headquarters in New York before joining the New Jersey Nets last month to facilitate their move to a new arena in Brooklyn. NBA Commissioner David Stern, who in the past rattled local officials by implying the Kings could move without a new deal, has more recently made it clear he wants a franchise in Sacramento for the long term.

"Art sees the Kings and Monarchs, and what they represent, as a significant asset to the community," Dickinson said. "He has enormous connections and great resources.

"These things tend to be sagas, not short stories, and the idea that it's difficult and protracted is not unique to Sacramento. Art wants to keep the NBA here, and the thing you can say is that he's got the background to try for that."
 
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Warhawk

The cake is a lie.
Staff member
#2
(con't)

The Art of building an arena deal
The main players in the latest effort to build a sports arena in Sacramento:
* Art Savage: CEO of the River Cats, past executive with the San Jose Sharks and Cleveland Cavaliers. A former Lafayette resident who lives in East Sacramento, Savage purchased a Triple-A baseball franchise in 1998 and brought it to West Sacramento in 2000, using bond money to build a $40 million stadium. Formerly helped with arena construction projects in San Jose and Cleveland.

* Warren Smith: Executive vice president of the River Cats. As Savage's business partner, Smith saw through the completion of Raley Field. A longtime acquaintance of Sacramento City Councilman Rob Fong, Smith last year lobbied for a downtown arena in the pages of his own Prosper magazine and criticized the Maloofs for being absent from the negotiations.

* Joe Maloof: Kings co-owner, president of the Maloof Companies. After completing the purchase of the Kings from former owner Jim Thomas in 1999, Maloof and his family upgraded facilities and built a practice complex next to Arco Arena, only to soon determine that a new arena was needed. Has been largely silent on arena issues since a publicized falling-out with Sacramento city officials in 2004.

* Roger Dickinson: Sacramento County supervisor. Dickinson worked with Savage and Smith to broker the deal in 1999 that marketed $40 million in bonds for the construction of Raley Field, to be repaid through stadium revenues. Longtime supporter of a downtown Sacramento arts/entertainment arena project.

* Rob Fong: Sacramento city councilman and arena proponent. Fong was involved in a yearlong, behind-the-scenes effort in 2005 to generate a new approach to funding arena construction. The plan that eventually emerged, which involved developer Angelo Tsakopoulos, accelerated land development and a Natomas site, was deemed too complicated and was abandoned.

* Heather Fargo: Sacramento mayor. A veteran of the arena wars, Fargo once aggressively sought the placement of a downtown facility, only to subsequently back away from the subject. Current position is in favor of a downtown arena, but only if the cost can be shared regionally.
 

VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
#4
A while back, Graswich actually mentioned the Savage-Smith entry into the picture.

I like this part:

Savage has allies. Tom Glick, a former River Cats executive, spent two years at NBA headquarters in New York before joining the New Jersey Nets last month to facilitate their move to a new arena in Brooklyn. NBA Commissioner David Stern, who in the past rattled local officials by implying the Kings could move without a new deal, has more recently made it clear he wants a franchise in Sacramento for the long term.

"Art sees the Kings and Monarchs, and what they represent, as a significant asset to the community," Dickinson said. "He has enormous connections and great resources.

"These things tend to be sagas, not short stories, and the idea that it's difficult and protracted is not unique to Sacramento. Art wants to keep the NBA here, and the thing you can say is that he's got the background to try for that."
I also liked the fact, somewhat unique, that Savage wouldn't talk to Kreidler about anything quite yet. To me, it indicates someone who is more interested in getting the job done than just talking about it. I get the feeling Savage is more about getting his ducks in a row FIRST, covering the bases so to speak, and then going to the local media about it.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed...
 
#5
My favorite part of that article is that David Stern said he wants a NBA franchise in Sacramento for the long term.

I would love to see the ball really get rolling with Savage, and if he got to a final stage, and the City tried to throw in a hiccup as they have consistantly done, see David Stern step in and lean on the City to make them cooperate and get it done.
 
#6
This may be real. Throughout history, when things get really bad, rare individuals step up and try to change things. Clearly, the construction of a basketball arena is not a dramatic historical event, but I think the analogy fits. Perhaps this guy is the real deal and has stepped up to fill the obvious void in leadership that exists around Sacramento these days.

The Sacramento City Council and Mayor Fargo ought to give half of their paychecks to Art for doing their jobs.
 
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#9
VF21 said:
A while back, Graswich actually mentioned the Savage-Smith entry into the picture.

I like this part:



I also liked the fact, somewhat unique, that Savage wouldn't talk to Kreidler about anything quite yet. To me, it indicates someone who is more interested in getting the job done than just talking about it. I get the feeling Savage is more about getting his ducks in a row FIRST, covering the bases so to speak, and then going to the local media about it.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed...
When I first read that he declined the interview, the journalist in me went "ouch." But I like your take on things better!

And I agree with QD. I like what I see from this guy.