It seems the only economic impact an Events Center is having on our community is in a consultant’s bank account;
Sioux Falls Mayor Mike Huether on Monday unveiled his five-year capital spending plan, which includes $1 million for planning and designing a new events center . . .
Holy Shit! Greg Jamison, the voice of reason?!
The events center expense surprised City Councilor Greg Jamison. “I don’t know if at this moment it’s a good idea to spend a million dollars on something that we don’t have a solid plan on financing,” he said.
EXACTLY! FINALLY A CITY COUNCILOR GETS IT! Secure the funding then talk plans. How many times do we have to let this thing fail before we get it? The public will not support this until we have a solid funding source. I find it a little odd that a mayor who is concerned about cell phone usage and office printers would throw another million into the Events Center burn barrel. We have enough studies already. Put a funding source on the ballot and move forward already.
If there’s an extra million, spend it on state supreme court litigation.
Actually, budget 5 million with punitive damages. State court will come down on the city hard. Pierre is hands rubbing with angst. There’s no fingerprints and no palm reader life lines left.
If Huether doesn’t do something now, the remainder of his term will be legal wrangling.
Yet another lottery winner who ended up broke after only 4 years.
“Yet another lottery winner who ended up broke after only 4 years.”
You should start publishing this stuff. I really makes me laff.
Jamison’s off base, amazed you agree with him. We had a plan and it and the candidates who advocated it were defeated in Pierre & at the ballot box. The EC wasn’t the defining issue, but it’s obviously a critical one.
How do you come up with a “solid plan for financing” when there’s no design, no proposal, no budget numbers to compile and you’ve already seen 3 task force plans over 12 years that sit on the shelf?
Huether said he wants to “simply replace the Arena”, but doesn’t want to add on or add amenities to the Convention Center. So hopefully he realizes soon how moronic it would be to tear down our 6500 seat Arena to replace it with a 10000 seat Events Center in the same place. You do that, you basically have remodeled the Arena & added onto the EC and there will be no noticable Economic benefit for our $100 million investment.
Build the new Events Center downtown where it will make the biggest ripple in the pond. Get some of those other developments moving and let’s get our property tax pie expanding so the rates don’t have to.
You liked Kermit’s idea of putting some money aside for an Events Center, yet Huether does so and you bash him? You jumping on the Jamison train or what?
Sy- There is a difference between putting money aside and spending a million on a plan that won’t have public support until a funding source is secured.
They want a number and a way to get the money before they know what we’re building?
Why are people so surprised when projects like this come in over budget?
Think about building a house that way:
Homeowner: I want you to build me a $100k house. I have the financing available now.
Builder: OK, what all do you want in it?
HO: I was thinking 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a commercial grade kitchen, a sauna, a stone exterior… maybe 5,000 total square feet.
8 months later:
Builder: So we’re done now, but the house actually cost $750,000 to build. Pay up, sucka!
HO: But we only budgeted for $100k!
Kinda like the $20 million dollar Pavilion that cost us $40 million so far.
I’m still waiting for the list of bands and events that would draw more than 10,000 in this city…and there’s a reasonable chance they’d play.
C’mon Scott! Elton John. Elton John.Elton John.
Small town political hacks crack me up.
And most of them have the gall to criticize DC when they make just as, if not more foolhardy fiscally irresponsible decisions.
yeah, Elton John when Sanford buys up all the tickets ahead of time. lol
I can’t understand why this is such a hard concept? Put together a ‘legal’ funding plan, put it on the ballot in November and have the voters approve it. Then draw up plans.
Read his entire plan here;
http://sms.keloland.com/ClassLibrary/Page/Information/DataInstances/4523/Files/4854/2011_2015_mayor_rec_cp.pdf
I find it funny how over the next couple of years he is fiscally conservative, then the budgets double in the following year. Kinda like that Credit Card he used to offer.
This says it all;
“We certainly can’t build the events center for a million dollars, but at least we can utilize this money to design it and then go out there and market it to the people of Sioux Falls,” Huether said.
Freaking stupidity. We have tried this approach, a couple of times already. ENOUGH! Tell us how we are going to pay for it first!
Looks like red light cameras on every corner and the tickets go to a grand a pop. Bodda boom bodda bing ya gotcha civic center.
I’m still waiting for the list of bands and events that would draw more than 10,000 in this city…and there’s a reasonable chance they’d play.
Not much chance at all. Use Sioux City as an example. They’ve had their “Events” Center now for over seven years. Yet I doubt they have averaged what our own arena has in that time. I’ve put forth this challenge before here and in the leader. How many “Events” has Sioux City hosted in the last seven years that our Arena could not have handled?
Throw in the fact that 40% of the license plates at a Sioux City “Event” have either Minnehaha or Lincoln county plates and you can start to draw a picture. Will our own “Events” Center have 40% of it’s plates from Woodbury County? If we have our own “Events” Center 80 miles from Sioux City’s all we are going to do is choke both “Event” Centers to death. During that slow and agonizing death, we will subsidize the hell out of it so the downtowners can have a place to be seen. Two, three thousand for a Storm football game, etc. etc. etc.
I say remodel the Arena first, then explore a DT location.
This story even confused me more;
http://www.kdlt.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3536&Itemid=57
Does this guy ever make a valid point?
The 40% is a bullshit Vernon Brown anecdote.
Poly is right, why choke off both cities EC’s?
Besides, once the casino gets built in Lyon County, you will see a major shift in entertainment dollars being spent in SF. They will bring in more diverse entertainment then the Arena or the Pav, and they will do it on flat floor space. Most people don’t give a shit about fancy seating or location, they just want to see their favorite acts. I loved the Pomp Room for that reason, hanging out with friends seeing my favorite bands meant more to me then keeping up with the Joneses.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, looking at this project in today’s or the last few year’s perspective is the wrong way to view it. Scott or I can tell you what we did in business 2 years ago, but we can’t tell you shit about what we will do next year or in the years thereafter. Ask all you want, but all we can do is advance our best guess.
You build an Events Center once for 50 years and hopefully you are done with it other than upkeep. Since you all insist on looking backwards, than at least go back to the most relevant example: The Arena. We build it during the recession of 1961 and it was designed to hold 10% of our population, way too big most said. Yes, we went years where we subsidized it and people bitched then as they do now. But we also hit the part of the bell curve as we grew to where we began to fill it, and we made money to pay it off. And we weren’t growing in the 60’s & 70’s nearly as much as we have been in the last decade, even up to this year.
Sioux City used to have a lot of folks hop in the car and go to Omaha, maybe as much as 40% before they built Tyson. They certainly didn’t come up here, as even the old Coliseum was comparably crappy like our Arena. Tyson opened in 2003 and it had such a harsh impact on Qwest that Qwest had to expand in 2006.
Also, Tyson was paid off last year, so it won’t “choke” any time soon.
As to how many events picked Tyson over the Arena? The answer is, all of them. We have no shot when we bring a knife to a gun fight. The events we get are table scraps.
Also, Lyon County will be a net benefit to Sioux Falls, not a drain. Their Events Center is 1200 seats, so it’s competing with Flandreau and the Pavillion for Williams & Ree & Carrot Top. People will be travelling to that Casino from all over, and we should give them another reason to come to Sioux Falls.
I can’t understand why this is such a hard concept? Put together a ‘legal’ funding plan, put it on the ballot in November and have the voters approve it. Then draw up plans.
See my first comment again.
You don’t go to a bank and ask for a big loan unless you can be specific about what it’s for.
Voters will never approve a new tax on anything unless they can see exactly what it will buy them.
Come up with a plan, a design, and a good location, and people will approve the funding source. Mayor Mike’s right on this one.
L3wis:
“I say remodel the Arena first, then explore a DT location.”
To get to 10K seats in that footprint you have to go up. You also have to demo the middle structure and start over from the footings. Your going to spend $15,000 a seat on a remodel, when you’d be spending $10,000 a seat on a new building.
Plus, you can add in the lost revenues of 18 months of having the site torn apart and NO events, games or concerts can take place, even if one were to fall in our laps.
Sorry Sy, but I’d bet a good portion of Sioux City shows occur there because the Arena is already in use for Skyforce, Storm, or Stampede games…and vice versa.
The 40% is a bullshit Vernon Brown anecdote.
I did not get that 40% number from Vernon. Got it from Jim Woster last year at the Orpheum Theater when he and Baloun had their comedy routine on the road. It is also pitched here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOtJJkZST2M
Also, Tyson was paid off last year, so it won’t “choke†any time soon.
Care to go down that road again about how the Tyson Center was funded in the first place?
And we weren’t growing in the 60’s & 70’s nearly as much as we have been in the last decade, even up to this year.
And how exactly are we growing? Didn’t we just see an Argus article about the thousands coming to Sioux Falls over the past two years, yet we had in that same time span a net loss of over 2,000 jobs. More people, but no money. Great for “Events”.
i heard the idiots on kkls talking yesterday that we need an event center so the black eyed peas will come here.
The only time it’s possible that the SC parking lot was 40% Minnehaha/Lincoln County is when the hockey or football team are playing the Sioux City teams. Just as it’s the same when they play here. But 40% of 3,000 is not that impressive.
i heard the idiots on kkls talking yesterday that we need an event center so the black eyed peas will come here.
Though the people who would attend that show clearly have poor taste in music, would it be wrong to say that a lot of them would patronize your business while in town?
Just cause the BEP suck doesn’t mean they won’t bring in visitors. The Top 40 is The Top 40 for a reason.
No matter what we had for a facility, the earliest the BEP’s would ever perform in this town would be 2015, when the Native American is the only original member left.
Was just reading about Santana and Steve Winwood playing “Saturday In The Park’ in Sioux City. Finally an “Event” that could have sold out Tyson, and what is Tysons role? You can park in their lot and get a $3 ride to Grandview Park and watch a “Event” for free. LMFAO. Of course, no coolers. That’s where the vendors hook ya. They gotta make a dime somehow. Paying $5 for a can of domestic beer is still a hell of a lot better than being hooked at the gate of Tyson, or the yet to built Sanford Event Center.
Scott Hudson and Detroit are right on about the future of the entertainment industry. Santana and Winwood are proof positive of it. They are playing dates all over the US with the same concept Sioux City is doing with their “Saturday In The Park”. Meanwhile the Tyson building will sit empty, much like our Sanford Events Center will.
Saturday in the Park is fun too. I wish I could go this year, but I forgot to ask it off. I usually park a lawn chair under a tree in the beer garden.
One year, Earl Petty and I got backstage and I asked Ted Wait to make me a margarita. I was so popped I didn’t recognize him, I just saw some guy making margs and I said, “Whip me one up while you are at it.” Then Earl tripped over a tree root and we ‘escorted’ out of the backstage area.
Poly,
I have no issue discussing Tyson or how it was funded. Again, it’s a model of Private, City & State partnership that we should emulate. Specifically, how is it the State of Iowa saw fit to throw millions of dollars at the project when the State of South Dakota is uninterested in even discussing it? Like I’ve said before, Iowa gets it. They know how to have some vision & guts and get large scale projects done and done right.
The Entertainment, Sporting & Convention industries are all changing, sure and no one knows the future. But, like any industry they tend to go where the money is and Sioux Falls was, is and will continue to be a place where money is made and spent.
and Scott, all shows want to sell out. If you are a promoter and that sell out means 6500 tickets vs. 10000 for basically the same costs, the only reason you pick Sioux Falls is if Tyson AND Fargo are booked.
I do think you are also in the ballpark though, we do lose business due to not having as many open dates. Fargo just one upped us again as they built a smaller Hockey Arena onto the Fargodome so they can have concerts and Hockey at the same time. With an economy similar, but not quite as good as ours, it sure looks like North Dakota also has figured out that doom & gloom predictions like Poly’s aren’t coming true.
Wow! The events center issue is a hot topic. Here’s comment #32.
It could have been built already with starting capital the funds expended for studies. Some city politician or administrator’s brother-in-law is getting rich from office studies.
This is how the traffic camera thing got started. There was major cost to taxpayers, a few people in Arizona got paid, and cameras will soon be stored in expensive rental space.
There’s a pattern here, it’s City Modus Operandus.
“and Scott, all shows want to sell out. If you are a promoter and that sell out means 6500 tickets vs. 10000 for basically the same costs, the only reason you pick Sioux Falls is if Tyson AND Fargo are booked.”
Sy, the 6500 and 10000 seat shows don’t cost the promoter the same amount. The guarantee is based on the size of the venue.
Can’t they build it so LifeLight has a permanent home?
Lifelight already has a permanent home, in the hearts of people who love Jesus.
http://teapartyjesus.tumblr.com/ (H/T – Angry Guy)