I attended the last EC Task Force meeting today. They will have another informal meeting to go over a few minor changes before presenting their recommendations to the council and public, but it is pretty much a done deal.
Before I go over the recommendations, I want to point out three glaring items I got out of the meeting today;
• There will not be enough hotel rooms to accommodate the new facility for several years after it’s completion
• Not only do they want to fund it with a retail tax increase, but the CVB wants a $2 additional hotel room tax (councilor Pat Costello was quick to point out that this is a ‘FEE’ not a ‘TAX’ not sure if he was being sarcastic or not).
• There was no talk about putting it to a public vote anymore, they seem to be steering away from that idea. But instead of just saying that they avoided the topic all together – so that is up in the air.
Here are the likely recommendations to the council and public;
• They want the new EC, Convention Center and Arena all in one location
• It will seat 12,000 but can be expandable in the future for 15,000
• They will encourage redevelopment of the surrounding area (hotels, restaurants, etc.)
• They want affordable or even free trolley and transportation options from the site to downtown, the mall, etc.
• They want to expand the Convention Center by 75%
• Relocate Howard Wood field (Darin Daby, president of the school board admitted that they have already been in the planning stages of what the new HW wood look like, which surprised me).
• Another private Hotel/Restaurant attached to the CC needs to be built at the same time as the project and have 150 rooms (at least).
• It will be funded with a retail tax increase with a sunset provision. (but this is wishy washy, because a future city council and mayor can find other projects to spend the money on once the EC is paid off. I am not buying it. I am also weary about not mentioning the public vote)
• They will pursue private sponsorships
Other interesting moments in the final CSL consulting presentation;
1) The Skyforce and Storm don’t seem interested in moving from the Arena. 2) Local and State colleges would NOT hold events there 3) Not big enough to support NCAA BB tourneys 4) Sioux Falls considered to be ‘Hit or Miss’ when it comes to concert bookings 5) SF can only expect 10 concerts a year 6) They want to build about 26-32 box suites 7) It is expected to bring in about 3.1-3.6 million in revenue a year and cost about 3.2 – 3.4 million to operate per year. 8) The reason they oppose a BBB tax is because it will be hard to sell convention events here. Omaha’s room tax is double what SF is now. 9) Rapid City’s CVB spends 3 times what SF does and has more hotel rooms 10) CSL felt having all the facilities in one location is a good idea.
After the presentation, J & L Harley-Davidson co-owner Jim Entennmen(sp?) gave a ‘Quality of Life’ speech, you know, the one about how this isn’t about money, blah, blah, blah, the same BS speech we heard before the Rec Center vote and the Indoor pool vote. It’s like these guys keep doing the same thing over and over and expect different results.
Two things I took from the meeting;
• CSL basically said our current Arena and CC is adequate and serving the needs of the community just fine right now. Which adds to my argument that we do need a new EC, but let’s not break ground for another 7-10 years.
• They claim that the EC will pretty much break even on operating expenses but will have a $30 million dollar economic impact on the community.
I’m sure it will have an economic impact on the city, mostly the people sitting on the EC task force, but not joe six-pack.