By Carter Christensen
The one key word of the current Events Center plan: Big mistake. I think it is ridiculous that the current Task Force filled by mostly conservative older folk thinks that they are planning the most ‘profitable’, most ‘ economically responsible’ Events Center that they can. It is so sad that the tax vote is going down in November if the legislature lets it pass to a vote. It is obvious that this ‘temporary tax’ that they want will not stay temporary and will easily be forgotten about in the coming years. There are a lot of people who just want the thing to be built, and there are also a lot of people who don’t want it to be built. But why don’t they want it built? Because either they don’t think Howard Wood should be torn down, they don’t want to be taxed another penny, or they just think it is an absolute waste of money to pay for it and we could easily find something else more meaningful to spend $200 Million Dollars on. It’s true! We could easily find something to shove $200 million dollars towards that would help the homeless or help the schools or something like that, but it just doesn’t make sense at least to me that Sioux Falls, the Heart of America with two Target’s (Munson in the LA Times), should lack in anything besides any other city in the region. Why should we have that image put on Sioux Falls?
As much as I love having event goers come into town to go to the Arena and Convention Center and drive down historic Russell Street with its industrial warehouses and patchy divided highway, it’s just that I think it is absolute crap that the Task Force and our out of clue City Council who works “SO DAMN HARD†to make sure that we have nice parks and make sure we leave Downtown as the last to plow for snow, that they think we should build a brand new 15,000 seat Events Center out by the current Arena. The only reason the plan is for out there is because the Big Mistake Convention Center that was built out there, which we all know should have been Downtown in the first place. The Task Force thinks by building a center out there we can add more convention space not only with the Events Center, but also by converting the current Arena into Convention space, and adding even more convention space onto that. WE DO NOT NEED ALL THAT CONVENTION SPACE. The Convention Center people say that we will get more events if we expand our Convention Center because we need more room to compete with Omaha and Minneapolis. Sorry, that’s bull, you know why? Because when convention’s look at cities, they look at where their Convention Center is, and what is around it for the event goers to do, and the hotel’s by it and the experience they will get by going to the Center. Call me out on it, but that’s even what Teri Ellis-Schmidt said at a meeting. She said that a convention was going to come to Sioux Falls but decided not to because there was nothing around our current Convention Center to do, not enough hotel space on site, and just a lack of entertainment in general up there. Is that not sending a message to the Task Force?
Here is my proposal, and call me out on anything you want and I will defend it: Build the EVENTS CENTER Downtown. By building the Events Center Downtown we don’t need to waste $15-30 Million Dollars just tearing down Howard Wood Field and moving it, which will probably cost even more. The funds are already in place for moving the rail road tracks, and by putting the plan to build it next to Cherapa, it will get that plan going and move the railroad tracks up by Rice Street which will benefit the railroad center in Sioux Falls. By building it in Downtown, we can use Private funding and sponsorship to pay for half of it. By building it downtown it will be cheaper, why? Because your only building the Events Center and surface parking, it will only cost about $120 Million to build it downtown which is $75 Million dollars cheaper than the current plan. If you sell sponsorship on everything, and I mean everything at this Events Center, you could easily pay for half of it right there. For the rest of the $60 Million use a Bed & Booze Tax, it is a very simple way to bring money in for the city because of the increase in hotel use not only Downtown but down by the mall to when people come in just for the mall. There are so many cities that use that.. I also believe that we should charge for parking in the first few years.. And last but not least, use a TIF. Tax Incremental Financing. By using a TIF only the businesses, BUSINESSES, that benefit from the center will get taxed, now it might not be a happy thing for some of the stores and restaurants Downtown, with the added business that they would get from this, they could easily help pay for it, since it will benefit them. Any other option would most likely have to go to a Bond. Now if anybody is still complaining about traffic and parking. STFU. There is over 1,000 more spaces downtown then there is out by the Arena, plus the extra 1500 spaces of surface parking they would build right next to it with the open land Downtown. Traffic is easy, not everyone is parked in the same place like the current Convention Center spot right now. People are parking on streets, in parking garages, in different surface lots, at hotels. And by being centered in the city, you have so many options of leaving Downtown. People will be going north, people will be going south, east, west, not everybody is leaving at the same time or same direction.