(www.i-capitaladvisors.com)
Back on May 27th, I wrote about the situation that played out in Corpus Christi with their Memorial Coliseum...
http://saverobertsstadium.blogspot.com/2011/05/arena-that-divided-whole-city.html
For those who don't want to mess with reading the post, here's a very basic summary...
1. The city of Corpus Christi, Texas built a new arena (American Bank Arena) in the fall of 2004.
2. This left the city in a dilemma of what to do with their old Memorial Coliseum.
3. After 5 years of doing nothing, the city received five bids to reuse the coliseum but only investigated one.
4. That one plan was not properly vetted and demolition was later agreed upon.
5.Corpus Christi thought they were getting a good deal on demolishing the building for $1 million but they were wrong. Demolition took an entire year as the company faced labor shortages, cash flow shortages, and weather delays.
6. The lot is an empty parkland that nobody is satisfied with.
As I said in the post back in May, the scary thing about the whole Corpus Christi situation is that city officials and media writers have picked up the story and think Corpus Christi made the correct decision. That, itself, should explain to you why our town is in the state it is in.
So far, city officials have already done a great job replicating Corpus Christi with our downtown hotel project. They didn't pick the right company to renovate the Big E, they never vetted any of the groups, they refused to listen to a group wanting to reuse the Big E, and then they demolished the Big E so that we have not one, but two empty lots downtown. And like Corpus Christi, no one is happy.
As if that is bad enough, it now appears that city hall is fully prepared to replicate this disaster once more at Roberts Stadium...
http://tristatehomepage.com/fulltext?nxd_id=294817
Mayor Weinzapfel has included $200,000. in next year's budget to be used for the demolition of the stadium or as a down payment on renovating the facility.
My initial reaction was "You've got to be kidding me. They actually think $200,000 would demolish Roberts Stadium." But after many hours of deliberating back and forth, I have finally come to the conclusion: THEY SIMPLY DO NOT HAVE THE MONEY!
The main point to this entire movement is this: If we fight to save Roberts Stadium, there will be funding. Placing sports such as professional indoor soccer, professional indoor football, professional minor-league basketball with trade shows, mid-size concerts, and youth sports tournaments will draw tourists, create jobs, and maintain Roberts Stadium's sustainability and profitability.
As a result, renovating Roberts Stadium will be eligible for funds from sources such as the Innkeepers Tax which is only allowed to go to tourism projects, not demolition. This is assuming that we haven't generated the funds ourself from fundraisers...
http://saverobertsstadium.blogspot.com/2011/07/lets-make-funding-personal.html
On the other hand, demolition supporters are out of luck. $200,000 is probably all they are going to get and it won't even come close to getting their job done. We seen the "deal" Corpus Christi got when they selected the cheapest bid to demolish Memorial Coliseum for $1 million ( which is FIVE TIMES the cost of this estimate). We also seen the "deals" city hall has been getting for demolishing the Big E and building another hotel on the lot. That debacle has resulted in an emergency demolition filing while city hall starts from scratch for the third time.
The worst part of this whole fiasco is that demolition supporters are now dragging the hard working, loyal, dedicated, honest, and faithful Roberts Stadium workers into this mess. Just today, I talked to a worker from SMG who has worked many, upon many, years at Roberts Stadium. This time next month, this worker will be unemployed as Venuworks could only take so many full-time workers from Roberts Stadium.
Once this worker becomes unemployed, it is highly likely that they will need to draw unemployment funds until they can find work, which most likely will not pay as good as SMG/ Roberts Stadium. In an era of unemployment reaching 9%, the last thing we need to do is add these great workers to that list. This will only compound the amount of government funding needed to demolish Roberts Stadium.
The important thing to remember here, is that if we commit to keeping Roberts Stadium as a mid-sized arena, all of these workers keep their jobs and go back to work. Furthermore, SMG or Venuworks (depending on who wants the contract) has the power to schedule and recruit even more events than I currently have rounded up. They also have the power to work together so that we can leverage our two arenas together as one package to bring in top-notch events to Evansville. All of this means more money in the local economy. We don't have to send these great people to the unemployment line.
And then there is what to do with the land post-Roberts Stadium. If demolition supporters only have $200,000 to demolish Roberts Stadium, where are they going to get any funding to build anything back? Where would the funds come to build a non-tourist drawing park (I will be talking about this next week)? Where would the funds come to maintain this park? Where would the funds come to build ANYTHING cheaper than renovating Roberts Stadium? Is there even anything cheaper than renovating Roberts Stadium?
The answer to all of those questions is simple as well: There are no funds to do any other project. If demolition supporters only have a fraction of their funding needed to demolish Roberts Stadium, you can bet they will not come up with any realistic funds to build another project on the land.
Remember last year when the ball fields project budgeted $1.5 million to demolish Roberts Stadium? Don't you think that if there was a chance that they could demolish the arena for $200,000 they would have taken it? In the last remaining weeks of the ball fields project, our Vanderburgh County Council pressed and pressed and pressed the ECVB to trim costs so that they could approve it. In the end, the ECVB could not. They, like you and I, know that $200,000 to demolish Roberts Stadium is a ridiculous and absurd estimate.
For those of you who are unsure about saving Roberts Stadium because of costs, I ask you this: Do you really want the Executive Inn fiasco coming to Roberts Stadium? Do you really think that will save taxpayers one single penny? Do you really think adding former SMG workers to the unemployment line is really going to be cheaper than renovating Roberts Stadium? Do you really think city hall would find funds to reuse the Roberts Stadium lot?
If you are a rational thinker, your answer to all of those questions should be NO. We're constantly being reminded by demolition supporters that renovating Roberts Stadium will be a waste of taxpayer dollars. Well, they must be looking in the mirror because dragging out demolition because you only have a fraction of the funding, adding to the unemployment line, and failing to identify funding for a new project on the land is the real waste of taxpayer dollars.
Last May, we learned a lesson from Corpus Christi's Memorial Coliseum. We learned that we simply cannot afford to duplicate Corpus Christi's decision!
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