HOW TO GET MORE HOUSTON NEIGHBORHOODS TO SUPPORT THE DOWNTOWN DYNAMO STADIUM DEAL It’s easy! Just start talking about an alternative plan for a stadium in some other area of the city. Neighborhood groups will be very supportive. Hey, it worked for Bellaire! “The [Bellaire City] Council voted 6-0 in favor of a resolution calling on the three parties to close a deal on a stadium just east of U.S. 59 near the East End. It also asked the dealmakers not to support a recently emerged proposal to build the stadium along Bellaire’s northern border.” [Houston Politics]
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Any solution that uses tax money for the stadium is a bad deal.
There was a chance with the location near Bellaire that it would be all privately financed….
KJB – there’s no such thing as “all privately financed.” In order to build the stadium at the Bellaire site, the infrastructure is going to have to be improved the same as in the East End, which is the object of the TIRZ money. Add to that the fact that NO feasibility studies have been done on the Westpark location by anyone (City, County, or Midway, apparently), and that the authorities are probably going to have to build a ramp and exit to/from Westpark, and the costs to the City & County could easily exceed the modest $10M & $10M in TIRZ money currently being proposed.
The Club is asking for nothing more than the ordinary concessions any other venture would get from the taxing authorities in exchange for the capital investment.
Everybody wins with this deal – City, County, Club, taxpayers, East End residents, and fans. Unlike the boondoggle for the big three stadia.
TIRZ money won’t be citizen tax money. It’ll be only money coming from the increased value of the commercial properties that agree to be in the TIRZ. This means money won’t be taken away from other city public works projects to build the infrastructure. That is the benefit to utilizing the TIRZ system.
The city or county don’t have to perform the feasibility if they don’t build it. Midway and the Dynamo would take that role.
No ramps would be built for the Westpark location just like no ramps would be built for the Downtown location. MinuteMaid and the Toyota Center didn’t require freeway adjustments to be built.
The City and County do not win. The politicians may say they will, but no new stadium has ever had a positive return on investment in terms of economic impact (the claim made by politicians). A popular one brought up is PetCO Park in San Diego. Tax money invested in the park and area has not been returned in equal to the city after years of economic boom around the park. A few restaurants, bars, some businesses, and some apartments wont’ repay the millions the city and county will have to cough up.
I have this vision of tacky yellow signs popping up all over Bellaire with this gigantic stadium. The stadium that devoured Bellaire. “Stop Dynamo!”
Our county courts are going to be swamped by lawsuits filed by developers who were stopped not by signs but by pandering politicians who will then finance their projects by having the taxpayers pay for the developments through judgements.
The Houston Dynamo is an operating subsidiary of a Los Angeles based company which contributes less than 50 full tims jobs to the local economy. Their premise for having Houston taxpayers finance a new stadium is the belief that if the 20,000 fans who attend their 20 some odd games each year sit 5 miles closee to downtown in a new 20,000 seat stadium the money that will be left over after operating profits are exported to Los Angeles to stimulate that economy and the money left over from concession revenue after Aramara expropriates profits to Philadelphia to stimulate that economy will provide a windfall to the Houston taxpayers who actually paid to build the stadium.
Higher operating costs, expropriation of profits to stimulate the economies of Los Angeles and Philadelphia and no additional jobs for the Houston area to operate the facility. It is a proposition so misguided only a politician could love it. Maybe Anise Parker will chose to be a public stweard and not a politician and kill the deal once and for all.