New arena cost revealed at near $400M
- Thread starter PurpleHaze
- Start date
I have done some preliminary work on the LR alignment at the airport. It is still pretty much on hold - we were told to not do any more work on it at this time. RT just has no funds right now and each rail segment they build has to be able to pay for itself at the time of construction in order to get matching funds. So they have to build MOS (minimum operating segments) in order to do it that way. Right now they are extending the line to Richards. After that it will likely be in small chunks and finally to the airport. With the funding problems RT has right now, it is going to be a lot longer than 10 years.
Football for LA, not Sac.
I was just drawing a parallel to what AEG's development projects did for downtown LA and what they could do for Sacramento, if the city gets out of their way. Doesn't all have to be done at once, but over the next decade, you could have a nice entertainment hub, all starting with the basketball arena.
I was just drawing a parallel to what AEG's development projects did for downtown LA and what they could do for Sacramento, if the city gets out of their way. Doesn't all have to be done at once, but over the next decade, you could have a nice entertainment hub, all starting with the basketball arena.
Thing is is how do you police everyone to make sure pays? It costs alot to employ enough fare inspectors, and I believe there's only like 10 total, and at close to $20/hr 7 days a week, it probably costs more to employ them than the amount of money they lose by fare jumpers. There is a method to the madness and it isn't the method they're using now. Once the arena gets done, if light rail only runs till 8pm like it does now, then RT is REALLY dropping the ball on the whole situation.
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/05/30/3663301/back-seat-driver-would-new-sacramento.html
As they rush to plan a new arena for the Sacramento Kings and major concerts, are city officials putting a long-planned downtown transit center at risk?
Plans unveiled last week for an 18,000-seat arena on city land behind the downtown depot have some transit advocates worried.
The drawings show the big oval-shaped arena plunked down right where the city is preparing to put a new train complex. It's as if the transit center had been squashed by a flying saucer.
Is there room to squeeze the arena and the transit project on the same site? If not, does the transit center go someplace else? Where?
City transportation head Jerry Way and Councilman Steve Cohn said they are not sounding the alarm but acknowledge the arena design poses serious questions about the future of the transit complex.
A new transit center in the railyard has long been one of the city's top priority civic projects. It would replace the current train depot, and include room for possible bullet trains in the future.
Transportation chief Way says the next 100 days will be crucial. That is when city and regional officials will look at details about how to build a sports and entertainment facility, including what it means for the transit center. "We'll drill into the details and see how we can shoehorn this in there."
An arena proposal last year indicated an arena and transit center could be merged into one joint-use building. That has worked in other cities, giving train and transit users easy access to the entertainment facility.
But the detailed drawings shown to city officials last week make no accommodations for a transit center. Developer David Taylor, one of the architects of the arena proposal, said his group and city officials are committed nevertheless to figuring out the transit center puzzle in the next few months.
A joint facility is possible, he said, but may be difficult because there are restrictions on the use of government transportation funds.
If the transit center doesn't fit on the site, the city may be forced to give an estimated $21 million or more in Measure A transportation sales tax funds back to regional authorities – at least temporarily.
The city was allocated that money to help buy the depot-area site to build the transit center.
The city, however, retains rights to that money. It can reclaim the funds, for instance, to buy another parcel of land for a transit center, officials say. But land options are limited.
On the plus side, the new arena, as drawn, melds well with plans for light rail. It's oriented so that a light-rail stop sits just outside the front door. That rail line would connect to North Sacramento, south Sacramento, Folsom, and possibly eventually to the airport, giving thousands of ticket buyers front-door service to concerts and ballgames.
As they rush to plan a new arena for the Sacramento Kings and major concerts, are city officials putting a long-planned downtown transit center at risk?
Plans unveiled last week for an 18,000-seat arena on city land behind the downtown depot have some transit advocates worried.
The drawings show the big oval-shaped arena plunked down right where the city is preparing to put a new train complex. It's as if the transit center had been squashed by a flying saucer.
Is there room to squeeze the arena and the transit project on the same site? If not, does the transit center go someplace else? Where?
City transportation head Jerry Way and Councilman Steve Cohn said they are not sounding the alarm but acknowledge the arena design poses serious questions about the future of the transit complex.
A new transit center in the railyard has long been one of the city's top priority civic projects. It would replace the current train depot, and include room for possible bullet trains in the future.
Transportation chief Way says the next 100 days will be crucial. That is when city and regional officials will look at details about how to build a sports and entertainment facility, including what it means for the transit center. "We'll drill into the details and see how we can shoehorn this in there."
An arena proposal last year indicated an arena and transit center could be merged into one joint-use building. That has worked in other cities, giving train and transit users easy access to the entertainment facility.
But the detailed drawings shown to city officials last week make no accommodations for a transit center. Developer David Taylor, one of the architects of the arena proposal, said his group and city officials are committed nevertheless to figuring out the transit center puzzle in the next few months.
A joint facility is possible, he said, but may be difficult because there are restrictions on the use of government transportation funds.
If the transit center doesn't fit on the site, the city may be forced to give an estimated $21 million or more in Measure A transportation sales tax funds back to regional authorities – at least temporarily.
The city was allocated that money to help buy the depot-area site to build the transit center.
The city, however, retains rights to that money. It can reclaim the funds, for instance, to buy another parcel of land for a transit center, officials say. But land options are limited.
On the plus side, the new arena, as drawn, melds well with plans for light rail. It's oriented so that a light-rail stop sits just outside the front door. That rail line would connect to North Sacramento, south Sacramento, Folsom, and possibly eventually to the airport, giving thousands of ticket buyers front-door service to concerts and ballgames.
Just about all but like PDX said, Portland has the honor system as well as Phoenix and LA. In L.A., it costs around $1.50 to ride one way but if you get caught not paying, the fine is well over $200. The county banks on more than 90% of the people not wanting to play the odds and if over 90% of the people who ride do actually pay, then the county and city figure that they're hitting all their revenue targets.
Also, the train operators get a pretty good head count of how many riders their respective train gets. The city and county add up that number then see how much money they collected and the number usually comes out to more than 90%. They figure that the cost and headache of installing a BART type system would cost more than the amount of money lost by people who don't pay the fare.
Also, the train operators get a pretty good head count of how many riders their respective train gets. The city and county add up that number then see how much money they collected and the number usually comes out to more than 90%. They figure that the cost and headache of installing a BART type system would cost more than the amount of money lost by people who don't pay the fare.
From what I remember, Seattle and Vancouver, BC are also honor systems (during the Olympics all transit was free if you held an event ticket that day so its possible they just opened up any turnstiles). All of the systems are either above ground or have significant portions that run above ground. I think that is a major reason that making turnstiles doesn't work and the cost of doing above ground has to be much less than digging underground tunnels. In Boston the green line T trains used to be free headed outbound as soon as they got above ground though I understand that has changed which probably makes getting on and off around BU and BC a big PITA.
Sorry to be replying to something posted weeks ago, but this is not true IMHO. Projects that I am involved with are ALL public money, and for the past several years the bid climate has been very, very favorable. At the beginning of this change in the bid climate, we had several projects that were estimated in the 25-50 million dollar range come in several million dollars lower than our construction estimates. If anyone is familiar with the new Sacramento Public Library in Natomas on the Inderkum HS campus, our estimates for that project were in the neighborhood of $25M, and it was awarded at $18M, and this was consistent with most projects that bid at this time. Since then, estimating has of course caught up with the bid climate, as is probably the case with this estimate by the ICON group. But that doesn't change the fact that it is still a good bid climate, and this number would have been much, much higher if this estimate had been prepared in 2005. Yes, costs for materials like copper are very high right now, and prevailing wage is what it is, but contractors are bidding very aggressively and distributors are quoting razor thin margins to get work.
This makes sense and is backed by some real numbers. Contractors have to keep their employees and with no work, they will leave. Contractors aren't making a lot of money but they are keeping their workers at a time when unemployment in Sacramento is quite high compared with the rest of the country.
On another note, I am surprised at no comment to the article I posted and especially this sentence as it seems to show the gist of the entire article:
Is this true? I find this amazingly difficult to believe. A mockup drawing is simply that - a mockup. The insinuation is that the intermodal and arena cannot exist together in the railyards. It goes against most of what has already been posted.
On another note, I am surprised at no comment to the article I posted and especially this sentence as it seems to show the gist of the entire article:
Is this true? I find this amazingly difficult to believe. A mockup drawing is simply that - a mockup. The insinuation is that the intermodal and arena cannot exist together in the railyards. It goes against most of what has already been posted.
When I see something like this is makes me think that Cohn and Way want to put their finger prints on this project in some way. The don't want it to fail. They want to say that they were instrumental in "saving" the transit complex in some way. Though I doubt that it really needs saving because the intermodal project is already extremely important to the city's future plans. Politics...
It's about as dumb as the council member for Natomas. If they Kings leave then Natomas and the RR terminal will be worse off then the Kings moving to the RR and taking the stations spot.
Natomas loses in both senarios, but the Kings leaving means the whole region is worse and reduces the chances of something being done with the old arena. If the Kings arent at the RR then who cares about a new station. It wont be a destination spot for entertainment.
Natomas loses in both senarios, but the Kings leaving means the whole region is worse and reduces the chances of something being done with the old arena. If the Kings arent at the RR then who cares about a new station. It wont be a destination spot for entertainment.
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Well they had sort of an ugly plan for the Train Station Depot anyway without the arena. The tracks are moving north and the station was going to stay right where it was. Replaced with some sort of odd plaza that nobody wanted or could figure out what was for other than to occupy your eyeballs while walking a block between the depot station and the raill platforms. It was another half good/half bad decision by the city. Good in that they decided to move the rail lines and platforms to make the best use of the available land. But bad in that they left the station behind. The intermodal station tag sort of disguised the whole thing by wasting the land in the middle waiting areas, bus stations and light rail stop. The whole idea is that the hub was the attraction. But just how attractive and busy was it going to be anyway?
The way I look at it, they can have the arena where it is and move the hub over to lot #40 across the street to the east of the arena. They can either move the train depot building as they should have decided to do a few years ago. Or they can build a new depot station and turn the existing one into retail/resturant. The city does not own lot 40. But they look like they are going to get paid some money for the land the arena is going on according to the ICON presentation. Perhaps that can be used to purchase the lot and get a new hub done in the best possible place.
For those curious about the move/no move options: http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/8066/Preservation_Commission_Approves_Depot_Plan
The way I look at it, they can have the arena where it is and move the hub over to lot #40 across the street to the east of the arena. They can either move the train depot building as they should have decided to do a few years ago. Or they can build a new depot station and turn the existing one into retail/resturant. The city does not own lot 40. But they look like they are going to get paid some money for the land the arena is going on according to the ICON presentation. Perhaps that can be used to purchase the lot and get a new hub done in the best possible place.
For those curious about the move/no move options: http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/8066/Preservation_Commission_Approves_Depot_Plan
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The issue is, that the site is the only land in the rail yards currently owned by the city. It has always been intended for the inter-modal hub and the rail road tracks are being moved to accomodate this, as we write.
To put the arena on another rail yard site, means adding in the cost of the land. Say somewhere between $15 to $20 million. Even if you wanted to move the inter-modal hub, instead,that still means buying more property from Inland.
To put the arena on another rail yard site, means adding in the cost of the land. Say somewhere between $15 to $20 million. Even if you wanted to move the inter-modal hub, instead,that still means buying more property from Inland.
Exactly what I have been saying in here. I work for the Feds and my projects have were coming in well below the estimate. They are still far lower than they would have been in 2005.
The contractors and suppliers working on projects funded with my Agency's money and ARRA funds are thrilled to have the work. The number of bids per project has been up, too. Highly competitive bidding.
The contractors and suppliers working on projects funded with my Agency's money and ARRA funds are thrilled to have the work. The number of bids per project has been up, too. Highly competitive bidding.