Details of MLS Plan Under Wraps

[Angus Podgorney]

Post-Dispatch article from Sunday 8/19/07

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/2DBFC76920DA199D8625733C000E6187?OpenDocument

Article says that details of the plan aren't likely to be revealed to the public until hours before the meeting on September 10.

Contains the usual quote from a sports economist that the project is not going to create any new dollars, and that sometimes a community takes on a project because they want what it will bring to the community, not because they're expecting it to provide a financial benefit.

[SoccerYoda]

So nothing for anyone to do on September 10?

[IlliniOnFire]

hard to dissagree with alot of that, Cost-Benefit analysis is tricky business... and plenty of times consultants have come up with bogus numbers for sports venues

Hopefully the city council will look at this development as a whole... this really is a whole new neigborhood for the city.

[sirfallsalot_2000]

The vote is still Sept. 10th, I believe the 20th is a typo.

This appears to be the first bit of negative press. It sounds suspiciously like the first elderly man at the city council meeting. I wonder if the reporter did some investigating after hearing his claims.

Still, I think it's funny that the media, not necesarily the people are weary about this venture. I still think this will go through. Seriously, Collinsville will get their 20 million back. Cooper is on the line for most of it.

[jfranz]

Every time someone needs a quote about how/why a stadium will not generate revenue, etc. they ask Zimbalist at Smith College. He's like the rock star of stadium why-not. The problem is, his work (and the work of others, like Field of Schemes) is focused almost exclusively on the economic benefits of the stadium itself. His research (and others) does NOT have much to say about a stadium + retail center + housing development where relatively minor public funds are being spent almost exclusively on infrastructure improvements (like roads, electricity, sewer, etc).

Zimbalist is nearly (while not entirely) irrelevant to the proposed plan in Collinsville. If Cooper were building a stand-alone stadium in the City/County, where primary infrastructure already exists, and if he was therefore asking for a great deal of public funds for non-infrastructure costs, then their economic analysis would be worth listening to. And they do have some solid arguments, with data to back them up. BUT, as far as I know, nobody has done any serious analysis of these new, multi-dimensional suburban projects. Probably because they are a rather new phenomenon. And one that owners/operators in other (more "mainstream") sports don't get involved in; because, well, they typically don't need to.

[Angus Podgorney]

The vote is still Sept. 10th, I believe the 20th is a typo.


Thanks for the catch. The vote is indeed still on the 10th of September.:o

Angus

[jasontoon]

Article says that details of the plan aren't likely to be revealed to the public until hours before the meeting on September 10.

Here's what aggravates me about this story: the lede says "just hours before the vote." Then the story goes on to say the agenda will actually be released 48 hours before the vote. We call that "days" where I come from.

Any one point in time is "just hours" away from any other - it's a question of how many hours. By the reporter's standard, Julius Caesar was assassinated "just hours" before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Funny how the Post was never this reflexively alarmist about the much larger stadium project that benefited the team that they owned part of...

[jasontoon]

Another oddity from the story: "Last week, Cooper laid out plans to bring a professional soccer team and a $402 million development to Collinsville..."

That's the first I've seen of that $402 million figure. Anybody know where that came from, or is that a typo?

[sirfallsalot_2000]

Another oddity from the story: "Last week, Cooper laid out plans to bring a professional soccer team and a $402 million development to Collinsville..."

That's the first I've seen of that $402 million figure. Anybody know where that came from, or is that a typo?

It is the first time I've seen it either, but I would imagine that would be the entire cost of the project (retail, residential, soccer) The 100 million was just for the stadium I believe.

[bulldg27]

The entire plan is over $400 million. There was an article indicating the total cost of the entire site. Anyway, some of the statements about the economic impact would have to be questioned. I would like to know exactly what he know and where the information came from.

[McGinty]

Every time someone needs a quote about how/why a stadium will not generate revenue, etc. they ask Zimbalist at Smith College. He's like the rock star of stadium why-not. The problem is, his work (and the work of others, like Field of Schemes) is focused almost exclusively on the economic benefits of the stadium itself. His research (and others) does NOT have much to say about a stadium + retail center + housing development where relatively minor public funds are being spent almost exclusively on infrastructure improvements (like roads, electricity, sewer, etc).

To wit, just look about 4 hours west on I-70. Kansas City, Kansas/Wyandotte County have a thirty (that's right, 30!) year tax abatement on almost every type of tax there is to International Speedway Corp to build the Kansas Speedway. Well, as of now, it doesn't produce revenue on its own. However, they used the speedway to construct a major tourism district that contains restaurants, retail stores, nightclubs, hotels and even a minor league baseball stadium for the Kansas City T-Bones. Soon, they will likely be constructing a resort casino.

The speedway did what was considered the unthinkable in the greater KC area - draw people from all over the area to Kansas City, Kansas (people in greater KC said the said things about KCK that people around here say about the Metro East). Not only that, it draws people from all over the country to see races, who then spend time in the tourism district and the nearby hotels.

I don't think that EVERY single stadium deal is good for the community. That is silly - just like it is silly to take the stand of someone like Zimbalist to just shout down any project. I also think it was a little dishonest (or at least intentionally misleading) on the part of the writer of the story. Many people could read that article and glean from it that Zimbalist has studied the plan, and based on his "research", he his announcing that this particular plan, like many around the country, won't be beneficial.

[ironhead]

I didn't find the article entirely negative. Even Zimbalist indicated the positive non-economic impacts, which we all recognize. I doubt the article will have much influence. The members of the Collinsville council are just like us, except not football-mad. They were most likely highly persuaded by Cooper's presentation, just like anyone else. Of course, they're not going to vote blindly in favor of it; nothing is without risk. However, the merits of Cooper's arguments, our support, plus the prestige of having a professional sports team in their town, IMHO - knock on wood - is probably going to persuade them to go for Cooper's plan. If this is the negative press the idea receives, then we will have done well.

[Stan Collins]

The entire plan is over $400 million. There was an article indicating the total cost of the entire site. I was thinking that project looked awfully elaborate for $100M.

I can't help but comment on the Zimbalist quotes, because there are actually several "stock assumptions" Zimbalist and Noll use that don't fit the case here (and unfortunately don't fit a lot of the cases) but just as they comment about owner-funded economic impact studies, these guys have no incentive to appear as though they're watering their conclusions down after gaining so much notoriety for them.

Basically, their study would apply if:

1- The government was paying cash money for most of the $100M stadium rather than 20% of it through a TIF.
2- They weren't getting anything other than a stadium in the deal.
3- There wasn't going to be much going on at the stadium besides the team, and thus no real tourism,
and
4- The government in question is some kind of "regional" government rather than the municipal government of Collinsville, IL.

That last I call "the 10,000 foot fallacy" and it's the one that bugs me the most, because it's like arguing AT&T shouldn't make any investments in its network because it wouldn't create any new cellular customers, but only transfer them from other companies to AT&T.

One can imagine what AT&T's response to this is likely to be!

[bulldg27]

The project is going to create so much traffic to Collinsville that it's going to be ridiculous. If you add the number of homes that are going to be built there, the number of retail stores, office space, and the stadium; you are basically transplanting a community in order to create a market for all of the plans there. I think that it is a great plan and that Jeff Cooper and group have spent a lot of time on this and I think that we are in great hands on the whole project.

[chopsuey12]

LETS GO SAINT LOUIS(NAME TO BE KNOWN)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So whos gonna gather Sept.10 Before,While, and to (hopefully) celebrate this? Lets show support!

[Redhawk1]

Any idea if Cooper has an alternate plan if the Collinsville Board of Alderman vote NO??

[Sport Billy]

Any idea if Cooper has an alternate plan if the Collinsville Board of Alderman vote NO??


There is no alternate plan - he's not going to need one anyway.

[sillinois]

Right. This plan is still going to work, even if some overachieving Post-Dispatch reporter tried to make a story out of nothing.

Tom Timmerman has been the lead guy at the Post on this project all along and then the Post lets some bicycle riding fool write on the story who has an obvious bias. Timmerman's articles were positive on the project because it is a positive project, can they not accept that? I suppose people in Missouri feel it is 100% impossible that this plan looks like a great plan and that it is going to happen in Illinois. Their knee-jerk reaction after the Ballpark Village fiasco is to question public financing in all instances. Well, their knee-jerk overzealousness lead them to run a story that had absolutely no merit regarding the comments from outside "authorities" on public financing, even though they had absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of this individual circumstance. I would have preferred they quote the sole guy who was against it at the last meeting, at least he heard the presentation so he knows some of the specifics.

This was just the Post-Dispatch trying to appeal to the liberal, bike-riding base that think all business and development are bad unless it consists of 80 story towers in the City. And, it doesn't hurt this project is in Illinois, who has shown time and again they are clearly superior to Missouri when it comes to all things government related (why do you think Chicago is Chicago and Saint Louis is Saint Louis). Running the story appeals to Missourians basic instinct against their eastern neighbors. But, it is Saint Louis Soccer UNITED. When we are bringing home the MLS Cup in a few seasons, we'll see a UNITED Saint Louis celebrating.

[jfranz]

(why do you think Chicago is Chicago and Saint Louis is Saint Louis)

http://www.amazon.com/Natures-Metropolis-Chicago-Great-West/dp/0393308731/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-9242557-6053424?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1187877467&sr=8-1

And I ride my bike to work every day. But I hope you'll still read my posts. ;)

[mitchs3]

Zimbalist and the other 'knee-jerk' anti-stadium commentators have some arguments that make sense, but their inability to fully acknowledge the benefits of certain positive aspects (e.g., related non-stadium development, as discussed earlier in the chain) of plans like this makes their analysis tainted, to me anyway.

Besides, most often their arguments are directed at projects like the new Busch -- where you are replacing an older, existing stadium with a fancy new one -- and whether the public investment is merited for a replacement stadium. There you are looking at incremental benefit -- is the public investment merited based on the increase, if any, in public benefit from the old stadium to the new one. In the case of the proposed Collinsville stadium, you're talking about going from empty field to significant multi-use retail, housing, entertainment etc. complex with a stadium just as one component. The projected numbers are certainly subject to different interpretations by differing analysts about whether they are realistic projections, but if all Cooper's group proposes gets built it would be hard to say that an approximately $20MM public investment, repayable solely from incremental tax increases in the project area, wasn't worth it, even if it doesn't live up to all the projections, for a $400+MM total project.

One aspect of the article regarding whether they consider/approve this in more detail or less on Sept. 10th -- I hope for approval of more detail -- to keep them from having to go back for additional rounds of public approval, and to keep the league from questioning whether they have a truly 'done' stadium deal.

One unrelated item (sorry, I'm a fairly infrequent viewer and even less frequent poster) -- in short, what has happened in Seattle that seems to make them so confident that they're going to get a team without an SSS (and looking at different posts it looks like even non-Seattle people (Philly included) agree that they may well get a team without an SSS). Purely geographical?