No new taxpayer stadiums! (Glendale: buying, maintenance, club)

[Ponderosa]

Tell 'em all to go pound sand. None of them are worth the price of a ticket. If they left town, few would notice.

[ibarrio]

I agree, no more new taxpayer stadiums. Not when education, police, and fire are underserviced. They can leave!!

[jimj]

So, the $200 million +/- that everyone is up in arms about is a figure generated by Maricopa County, the owners of said stadium, NOT the baseball team.
The contract evidently says that the team as a renter does not have to maintain the stadium the landlord does and they reportedly are attempting to breach the contract by refusing to pay for said maintenance.
The county admits it CANNOT pay for the maintenance it's contracted to supply and yet the team cannot look elsewhere.
The County signed a contract stating that it would keep the stadium "state of the art" whatever the heck that means. If they were dumb enough to sign that then they deserve anything that comes of it.

I feel sorry for all the businesses and employees downtown who depend on stadium traffic to survive and all the businesses that in turn depend on income from those.

[ibarrio]

Originally Posted by jimj

So, the $200 million +/- that everyone is up in arms about is a figure generated by Maricopa County, the owners of said stadium, NOT the baseball team.
The contract evidently says that the team as a renter does not have to maintain the stadium the landlord does and they reportedly are attempting to breach the contract by refusing to pay for said maintenance.
The county admits it CANNOT pay for the maintenance it's contracted to supply and yet the team cannot look elsewhere.
The County signed a contract stating that it would keep the stadium "state of the art" whatever the heck that means. If they were dumb enough to sign that then they deserve anything that comes of it.

I feel sorry for all the businesses and employees downtown who depend on stadium traffic to survive and all the businesses that in turn depend on income from those.

When compared to baseball stadiums, Chase Field remains "state of the art". When compared to Cowboys stadium or any of the new NFL builds then maybe the DBack have an argument. Keep in mind that the DBacks are not drawing 90,000 per game like the Cowboys are. So if you build it they will not come, at least in the D Backs case.

[JGMotorsport64]

Originally Posted by jimj

So, the $200 million +/- that everyone is up in arms about is a figure generated by Maricopa County, the owners of said stadium, NOT the baseball team.
The contract evidently says that the team as a renter does not have to maintain the stadium the landlord does and they reportedly are attempting to breach the contract by refusing to pay for said maintenance.
The county admits it CANNOT pay for the maintenance it's contracted to supply and yet the team cannot look elsewhere.
The County signed a contract stating that it would keep the stadium "state of the art" whatever the heck that means. If they were dumb enough to sign that then they deserve anything that comes of it.

I feel sorry for all the businesses and employees downtown who depend on stadium traffic to survive and all the businesses that in turn depend on income from those.

This is a lot of guessing that you are doing and quite a bit of it is wrong. So let's get the facts actually straight.

There is not term of art "state of the art" used in their lease agreement w/n any clause. Generally a tenant is responsible for maintenance but not repairs. The DBacks' lease agreement doesn't allow them to look outside of Phoenix until 2024 so they are trying to make a claim through financial statements where "state of the art" was used. But state of the art was not used in the actual lease agreement.

Also, Hall isn't calling for 187 million and he's happy, he's calling to retrofit the entire stadium and a cost that would exceed 187. That figure, according to the DBacks is basic maintenance.
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Even if the District had been able to identify adequate financial resources to fund the $187 million anticipated maintenance and repair costs, it would make no economic sense to make that investment in what would then be a 30-year-old facility. This should not rule out the possibility of retrofitting Chase Field if it is determined to be the best option. However, the $187 million would cover only basic maintenance and repair costs. It would do very little to upgrade the stadium to a “state-of-the-art facility” — it would mere enable an aging building to remain open.

https://drive.google.com/viewerng/vi...rs03242016.pdf

-----------------------------------------

Look at the first few pages, they are pulling "state of the art" from financial statements and demanding from there, not from the lease agreement. The county used the term in studies. That is not a binding statement. If there was a state of the art clause, or term of art used in the actual lease agreement, then it would have been the first argument and itwould have been right. The debate would then be "what is state of the art?" but right now its "is a statement in a financial record binding?" probably not. But because they are relying on financial statements, it is clear that this is what they have to work with. They should easily lose this case in an actual court, but they were looking for the court of public opinion by assuming that 1) they would have the kind of support the Coyotes did (despite being an entirely different scenario) and 2) that the public wouldn't actually look at their demand letter. Thanks to the local media, and I applaud them for doing this, they are losing that public opinion court, and would (hopefully) lose in an actual court handily.

[pvande55]

Why not post on Urban Planning or Politics..? This is an issue nationwide. Should taxpayers pay for sports stadia?

[Ztonyg]

Originally Posted by pvande55

Why not post on Urban Planning or Politics..? This is an issue nationwide. Should taxpayers pay for sports stadia?

I posted it here as 3 professional teams: The Coyotes, the Suns, and the Diamondbacks appear to want 3 new stadiums.

[BIG CATS]

Theres no reason for any of these teams to demand new stadiums. I can understand the Coyotes and their disagreement with Glendale, but Im sure they can work something out. The stadium is plenty new, and a pefectly fine hockey venue. The Suns dont need to go anywhere, either. There is NOTHING wrong with that stadium. At all.

As for the D-Backs (D-Bags?), theyre just being big babies. They raised a few small concerns about some structural deficiencies, but its nothing that cant be fixed quickly or cheaply. The stadium is state-of-the-art, there's no need to move whatsoever. All theyre gonna do is get another taxpayer-funded stadium, and leave another empty blight on downtown by abandoning Chase Field.

[AlohaAZ]

Originally Posted by Ponderosa

Tell 'em all to go pound sand. None of them are worth the price of a ticket. If they left town, few would notice.

Few would notice? That's completely laughable.

[AlohaAZ]

Originally Posted by BIG CATS

Theres no reason for any of these teams to demand new stadiums. I can understand the Coyotes and their disagreement with Glendale, but Im sure they can work something out. The stadium is plenty new, and a pefectly fine hockey venue. The Suns dont need to go anywhere, either. There is NOTHING wrong with that stadium. At all.

As for the D-Backs (D-Bags?), theyre just being big babies. They raised a few small concerns about some structural deficiencies, but its nothing that cant be fixed quickly or cheaply. The stadium is state-of-the-art, there's no need to move whatsoever. All theyre gonna do is get another taxpayer-funded stadium, and leave another empty blight on downtown by abandoning Chase Field.

The Coyotes and Glendale are done. There's nothing they're going to work out.

Suns: It's not a matter of whether venues are fine anymore. It's a matter of keeping up with everyone else, in the eyes of ownership. The Bucks are moving out of the (privately financed) Bradley Center in Milwaukee in a few years. It was built in 1988, four years before America West Arena at the time. US Airways Center will be the third oldest arena in the league, besides the renovated MSG and Target Center. I'm not saying it's right what ownership will do, just saying it's the way it its whether the public likes it or not. Everyone wants the latest and greatest.

Dbacks: The county is the one who came up with the checklist of deficiencies. The Dbacks rent Chase Field. Pretty sure the electrical grid, you know the thing that keeps the A/C running in there, along with plumbing aren't minor. Why fix it quickly and cheaply? You'll just run into the same problem sooner than later. I see both sides to the issue, but too many people don't realize what is needed behind the scenes for stadiums to operate over long periods of time. Whether the actual number is close to $200M is the real question.