Dynamo Downtown Stadium -- Financing & Politics discussion (news, funding, economics, politics)

Re: Downtown stadium Letter of Intent announced by Oliver Luck 5/14

Don't know if this has been posted, but here's a radio clip of John Lopez interviewing OL.

http://blogs.chron.com/lopezblog/archives/2007/05/listen_oliver_l.html

Some good detail on the stadium location and OL shys away from saying the potential stadium will host concerts but tries to promote it as home stadium option for TSU football games.

 

Re: Downtown stadium Letter of Intent announced by Oliver Luck 5/14

More Chronicle info if it hasn't been posted already...
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4808048.html

The major difference here is that they say that the new cost will be $80 Million for the new stadium, as opposed to $70 Million from initial reports. But consistantly, it'll be a 22,000 seater.

Also, Luck mentions this about a 2009 opening:

Also, this is mentioned as a possible practice site. I'm not too aware of it:

Does anyone know anything about that area?

 

Re: Downtown stadium Letter of Intent announced by Oliver Luck 5/14

Thanks for the link.

I also think this bit is useful in our discussions with civilians:

It emphasizes the point that OL has made from pretty much the very start of MLS to Houston -- the public contributions won't really be cash out of anyone's budget -- it'll be in the form of other assistance like the types listed here.

If there is any cash from public resources, it seems like it'll come from the hotel/car rental taxes. Those taxes are very high here, but local residents don't pay much of those amounts. They're generally paid by visitors. The mechanism for those taxes is already in place and currently collecting revenues, but it's not clear whether the rates would need to increase or if some the existing revenue streams could be reallocated. That's something that OL will have to work out.

 

Re: Downtown stadium Letter of Intent announced by Oliver Luck 5/14

If anyone saw the report on 39 last night, you get an idea of what's ahead. After a brief report on the basics, where, what, etc, they interviewed two people, one a lady with a Spanish accent who said it was great because she loves "fútbol" then a guy who said he disagrees with it because we have to pay for it and they make all the money off of it. He said they should take it somewhere else.

Grrrrrrrr.

 

Re: Downtown stadium Letter of Intent announced by Oliver Luck 5/14

Exactly what I've been saying.

I'm not afraid of panhandlers, if you grow up in Bangladesh like I did, you learn to deal with them.

And on the radio this morning, on 107.5 I think, on their news they mentioned the $70M price tag and said most of it would be paid for by the club. That's going to help people's perception if they keep spreading that info.

 

Re: Downtown stadium Letter of Intent announced by Oliver Luck 5/14

Indeed. If I can't walk through urine on my way to the Eddie Bauer store, it's just not worth the trip.

Good times, good times. Just remember to tip.




***

Anyway. Here's a question for the people. We'll probably have at least another month or two before the next big announcement from OL about the stadium. At that point, we'll have plenty more to discuss about the plans, costs, etc.

But in the meantime, what do y'all think about splitting the stadium discussion into a couple of threads:

Dynamo downtown stadium -- location discussion (for access, parking, safety, etc.)

Dynamo downtown stadium -- design discussion (for capacity, roof, stands, etc.)

Dynamo downtown stadium -- News & Analysis (for links to news, discussion about financing, politics, etc.)

What do you think?

 

Re: Downtown stadium Letter of Intent announced by Oliver Luck 5/14

sounds good to me... I'll be spending most of my time on the "design discussion" page.

 

Re: Downtown stadium Letter of Intent announced by Oliver Luck 5/14

How great is that - the LOI was announced on my birthday! What a special present.

 

Re: Downtown stadium Letter of Intent announced by Oliver Luck 5/14

Arguing threads 1, 2, and 3. Sounds good to me.

 

Re: Downtown stadium Letter of Intent announced by Oliver Luck 5/14

Girl, U get a birthday rep

 

Re: Downtown stadium Letter of Intent announced by Oliver Luck 5/14

Thanks, I needed that - especially since I'm getting beat up today on the chronicle article response board for the stadium. I never knew there were so many 'soccer haters' out that....what's that about anyway? Can't we all get along?

 

Re: Downtown stadium Letter of Intent announced by Oliver Luck 5/14

Good plan Anderson. Go for it!

Also, Happy Birthday Dynamogal!

 

The new threads are now up -- I moved the posts from the original downtown stadium to those new threads:


Use this thread for topics relating to the stadium being located downtown:

Dynamo Downtown Stadium -- Location discussion (site, access, parking, safety, etc.)​

Use this thread for topics related to what the stadium ought to look like and how big it should be:

Dynamo Downtown Stadium -- Design discussion (capacity, roof, stands, stage, etc.)​

And let's keep this thread for links to news about the stadium negotiation process, plus discussion about funding, politics, and similar topics related to the negotiations and the process itself.

 

Links to Fort Bend:

http://www.herald-coaster.com/articles/2007/05/16/news/top_story/topstory.txt

Sugar Land LOI:

http://www.sugarlandtx.gov/city_hall/city_secretary/agendas/FY2007/051507cc/5b/5b.htm

 

Today's edition of El Dia has a piece on the stadium negotations, including some quotes from OL and Houston City Council Member Adrian Garcia.

Highlights:

OL thinks that Lot C is the likely location.

The stadium would be ready by 2010 at the earliest.

Reconfirmation of the 22,000/70 million parameters.

Adrian Garcia says he sees no problem getting an agreement with Drayton about using the land.

Garcia sounds very optimistic - he says that they need to pay careful attention to the financing plans, but that the way things are going we could see construction on the stadium start this year.

They also have an hombre (y mujer) on the street section that gets folks' reactions. ​

(The article also has a couple of minor notes about the location being desirable, but that's really discussion for the stadium location thread.)

 

Harris County Sports Authority Meeting Agenda from May 10, 2007:

http://www.hchsa.org/news/meetings/5_10_07_agenda.html

See Item 4 of Executive Session. Could it be this was pertaining to the Dynamo Stadium? No Success finding any minutes on this meeting yet so it is speculation on my part.

 

Maybe, but I used to check the sports authority's agendas as regularly as I could back in 2005 when we were on the cusp of getting an MLS team and IIRC that item is sort of a standing item on their agendas. I think it's pretty much always there, although I never attended a meeting or followed up with the minutes, so dunno.

 

Exactly, and they are a little bit time delayed on updating anything on their site as well. Pure Speculation, but I thought it was interesting that the date was close to the announcement as the last meeting prior to that one was a Finance Meeting in March.

 

Re: Downtown stadium announced by oliver

Yes, but, the question begged by having a letter of intent with the City, is what is the City's involvement? If the City isn't doing much, it's just a piece of paper....

 

Re: Downtown stadium announced by oliver

The city owns the land. The city is probably going to have to work with the Astros on their parking garage. The city may have to work with Les Alexander.

Some money is going to change hands even if the construction of the stadium itself is mostly private money.




ENGLISH LANGUAGE USAGE ALERT, feel free to completely ignore this if you wish:

"Begging the question" actually means to use a circular argument, that is to prove something by relying on its own internal assumptions. It does not mean "raise the question".

 

Re: Downtown stadium announced by oliver

I may in fact have used it improperly, but I was trying to point out that given the previous expenditure of taxpayer dollars on local stadia, there is a sort of self-reinforcing notion that the letter of intent = a likely expense of tax dollars. That the City is obligating itself to something in this letter triggers an assumption in most people's minds that the City is giving something, and perhaps something some taxpayers might not like. Letters to the editor are thus pretty sensible, if one assumes what the letter says, which is kind of circular. Since they seem to be claiming otherwise, ie, that it's not a tax expenditure, it makes me wonder what the letter of intent really says. After all, I'd think that any non-compete agreement Alexander got is with the County Sports Authority and not the City. Similarly, I'd think the County/Sports Auth. owns the lot, not the City. It'd seem to me like the City might have regulatory/permit power and stuff like that, but what I've usually seen is the County deals with the Stadia financing and owns them.......

 

Re: Downtown stadium announced by oliver

I'm sorry if my comment about begging the question got us sidetracked.

Do you really think that the phrase "letter of intent" is the trigger for the public assuming that tax money is being used to build the stadium? It could be but I have a feeling that "City of Houston" and "new stadium" in any article is going to trigger that reaction.

I'll admit that I may have mixed the City together with the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority. My understanding is that Harris County-Houston Sports Authority does own the land in question. I would think, though, that an agreement with the City to go forward would be necessary before switching the lease from the Astros to the Dynamo. The Sports Authority is not going to do anything that the City doesn't want done. And vice versa. Officially the agreement with the City may be less important than with the Sports Authority but in fact will probably be the key element. Really both will probably happen at the same time. The City and the Sports Authority will be working together on this and neither wants to approve something that the other will have problems with. The Dynamo certainly don't want that.


As always, we shall see.

 

Re: Downtown stadium announced by oliver

I'm just trying to figure out what the "there" (in Gertrude Stein-terms) in this deal "is". And I'd think that the letter could be seen as communicating a degree of obligation more than just some news report that the two sides had sat down and talked about stuff. Talking doesn't commit them to anything. Maybe the letter doesn't, either, is my concern. [Of course, the anti-tax lobby seems to think so.] It sounds nice but a $70 million stadium is pretty expensive, it has to end-run this Toyota Center issue as long as the location remains the same, and while the City might be a help here I think Alexander and the County are the real movers and shakers in this, just like Alvarado was the one who could kill the golf-course-becomes-soccer-stadium idea. Not wanting to throw cold water on a possibility I hope is coming to fruition, but what can the City give us? I start to wonder if it's not a bluff or PR, or what the deal is.

 

Re: Downtown stadium announced by oliver

Nice reference. Regionally more applicable to the 'Quakes, if I remember the focus of her comment correctly but still nice.

I think the only obligation of the letter-of-intent is to exclusively negotiate. During that period they could come to some sort of binding agreement but that hasn't happened yet as far as we know.

I still think the Dynamo need the City to be behind this and the City won't officially be behind it until all the other ducks are in a row. The City can "give" us political will. No matter who the actual movers and shakers are the City can confer the a political blessing on this. If the Sports Authority and Les Alexander are the ones to convince, it is easier to convince them if the politicians also want it. Politicians who control money and access even if it isn't the exact money and access of this deal.

Lots of things can still kill this deal but you have to go after things in order. Doing the negotiations with these other power centers by going through the City is easier than not.

That's my take on it.

 

I would like to hear Oliver Luck's take on the non-compete agreement. Have we heard anything from him on this issue?