That's a bit different then having free usage of a professional stadium, isn't it. Its a true asset for the city and ISD, not just something they can use if Jones lets them and they pay what he's asking. Besides, $20 million is a drop in the bucket vs what Arlington is giving to Jones.
Dallas is turning into Detroit. Right now. It is one thing to say that taxpayer's wont and shouldn't help finance stadiums. That's fine. But when they lose teams to a neighboring city - other stuff follows. Shopping, conventions, tourists dollars, hotels, big events like Superbowls and Final 4 etc... won't make it to the city. And downtown areas collapse on themselves. Of the 5 major sports (including MLS) only 2 play in Dallas. I understand the sentiment, but re-doing the Cotton Bowl to accomodate the Cowboys made sense at a lot of levels. Slamming the door on them is as much cutting off your nose to spit your face as it is standing on principle.
I'll I'm saying is that we can't be principally against civic stadia and then praise the partnership of ULHOWA. I support these ventures, just like I would a convention center or other venues that bring people into town.
Well, to be honest, as a Frisco resident, I did have some reservations about some of the funding for the stadium. What won me over was the equity in the investments. The ISD, the city, the county and HSG all have very similar investments in this project. It isn't 80% city - 20% private. Its a nice balance....and the city and ISD gets something back from it. Also, since the city's portion is being funded by a tax increment zone those funds couldn't have been used for other, more immediate, needs like roads. It was always going to be a big capital project like this........and since this one ends up saving the school district $$$, then I'm all for it. Besides, I don't think you can say that publicly funded stadia are 100% evil or 100% good.....each one should be viewed on its merits. I feel the citizens of Arlington are going to be sorry they voted yes on this deal in decades to come. All I know is that the commercials promising better schools, better police, better city facilities if they voted yes were eerily similar to what was promised when W. got his baseball stadium built. If the Ballpark didn't actually deliver on those promises, why does anyone think the Cowboys can?
Nothing is black & white (or good vs evil). Each situation has to be looked at independantly on it's merits. I may be biassed but I'm pretty sure Frisco is getting just as good a deal as MLS with ULHOWA. Dallas wouldn't have been getting the same out of their deal. And just to be clear I only wish ill on whoever was responsible for cutting the deals with the Burn. I think it's absolutely tragic what is happening to Fair Park and the surrounding area. Instead of a city to be proud of the civic leaders have consistently let specific areas go to the dogs. It could be worse, we could be in Houston ;-)
First leave W. out of it, he was a mere employee with an equity stake. Rusty Rose owned most of the team. Except for the additional development that did not occur in Arlington, the Ballpark has been very beneficial to the city. The draw of baseball in Arlington is the lifeblood of the city. Even prior to the Ballpark, on weekends where the Rangers were in town, the hotels had near 100% occupancy compared to around 50% on other weekends. Also, the funding has come through sales tax and hotel tax, so the citizens of Arlington actually have a choice whether to pay for the stadium.
I'll take you word for it, it just seems interesting that they are claiming the football stadium will help cure some of the city's crime problems when the exact same thing was said of the baseball stadium. But if they still have crime problems after 7 years of the Ballpark, how is the football stadium going to help?? See what I'm saying? Maybe there has been a financial benefit to the city.....most independant analysis I've seen shows little to none actual benefit once you apply the original tax outlay to the equation. In other words, had the tax investment gone towards other projects what would the net benefit to the city be and how much more is the benefit from the stadium. Usually there isn't much of a difference....and many times other projects come out way ahead. Thing is, its easy to say there has been a net benefit of the stadium....of course tax revenue is up.....but how much more could it have been using that money for something else, or by not increasing taxes at all?
I don't recall anything being said about crime during the 1990 election. I was in HS in Arlington and worked on that campaign. The crime issue during this election relates to the fact that the stadium would be built in one of the worst neighborhoods. They plan to raze the whole area and build the stadium. Sort of the addition by subtraction approach to crime fighting.
Boy do we miss soccer, between the Inferno board and this, we have so many digressions (hockey fights, stadium tax issues, beer, etc.)
What Dallas gave up was a chance for a year round entertainment disctrict and a way to pump real life and money into a crumbling underused civic treasure. It wasn't just for the Cowboys and Jerry Jones or else how to explain the new "war" the Dallas city council is waging and the money they are committing to the aging Cotton Bowl. If they lose the Cotton Bowl Classic and Texas / OU then Fair Park could be harmed in a way that contributes to it's financial ruin. With Miller's thinking Fair Park would never have been built in the first place. The Burn were not nearly as big a fish but did add something to Fair Park and brought in a different audience and during a different time of the year. That too is lost. Dallas didn't only lose two teams they lost them at a venue that could ill afford to lose anything. They lost two things that brought in exactly what they needed - customers. Another thing to mention is that they also introduced more competition to Starplex. Frisco is similar sized, closer to moneyed denizens and not in an area that many mentioned kept them away from Burn games. I guess they will be able to fix any potholes that develop in the Fair Park area since that is the most important thing a city does according to Mayor Miller.
Dont forget the tax money being put up by the city of Frisco & Collin county has come from a bond package not a sales tax.
It's going to take more than $16 million of upgrades to keep the Cotton Bowl a prime destination for college football. And that doesn't even address all of the other non-football events that the Cowboys stadium is going to get. Since it's a domed stadium, it'll become a contender for Final Fours, for example. I'm not a resident of Dallas or Dallas County anymore, but if I were, I would vote in favor of their spending the same amount of money for renovating and upgrading the Cotton Bowl ($325 million) as Arlington residents are spending on the Cowboys. For one thing, that kind of money would turn the Cotton Bowl into a first class facility to attract the same kind of events that the Cowboys stadium is going to attract. For another thing, the money for all the event held there would be going back into city coffers, not into Jerry Jones' pocket. Finally, I've got a raging anti-Arlington bias (sorry, GoldFinger) and I'd like to see Dallas stick it to Arlington for a change.
I'd say that it's a matter of degrees. It's one thing for Collin County, Frisco, and Frisco ISD to shell out $55 million combined for a complex that'll be the new Frisco ISD football stadium, the home to 17 rec soccer fields, and oh yeah, the home of a professional soccer team. It's quite another to spend $325 million on pretty much anything.
The sticky wicket on something like that is the deal the city struck with the AAC - the no competing events (concerts, etc.) clause. It is why the Cowboys spent so little time looking at Dallas.
I disagree, it's relative to the ROI. Compare being in the Super Bowl rotation to MLS Cup. Arlington is about 6X the size of Frisco, as well.
Granted. But there are still many events an upgraded Cotton Bowl could attract that the AAC could never host. For example, the NCAA is pretty much only hosting both the men's and women's Final Fours at domed stadiums now. Why? 15,000-20,000 seats aren't enough anymore. And if a Final Four comes to the Metroplex, guess where it's going. That's right -- Jerryworld. And for all of Mayor Miller's blather about making the Cotton Bowl a destination for college football, I can very easily see the Cowboys making a play for the Texas-OU game -- one of the Cotton Bowl's two premier yearly events -- once Texas and OU's deal with the City of Dallas is up. And guess which local stadium is going to be a future host for the Big XII Championship game. (Hint: Not the Cotton Bowl.) Honestly, Jerryworld is going to be more of a destination for college football than the Cotton Bowl is, unless by "destination for college football," you mean, "destination for second-tier college football games."
See the problem is in measuring the ROI. Most of the ULHOWA numbers are pretty easy, they were going to spend MORE money building their own stadium anyway for the high schools. When you are relying on ROI coming from knock-on effects to local industry it is much more fuzzy.
Right, and like I mentioned earlier, what else could Arlington have done with the money, or how would it have effected Arlington citizens to not have raised taxes at all.
The financial success of a city depends on two revenue streams, property tax and sales tax. From my discussions with my developer, residential development is a zero gain for a city due to the services (police, fire, etc.) that must be provided. The real key is sales tax revenue. If you assume, that Arl. residents already spend most if not all their sales taxable dollars in the city, then to encourage economic growth you must have 'foreign' investment. So the issue becomes what could Arl. do with the money to encourage non-Arlington residents to come to the city and spend money? The best answer I would give, is to entice corporations to move their HDQ to the city. Usually you give up all the prop tax revenue, but you gain from the ancillary businesses that flourish around the company. Cities that don't bring people in from outside, canabilize their tax base and the result is a high tax, rundown city. A perfect example is Grand Prairie. GP has a perfect location, but does not bring anyone into their city (save the Racetrack). There's very little retail shopping and thus the city is a hole.