Raleigh Stadium/Arena/Sports Discussions

@UncleJesse
Since I can’t “heart/like” your post more than once…:thinking:
:heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart: :heart::heart::heart::heart:Very well said. Also, I am learning that I should always wait just a bit before I reply to some topics as it really keeps me from going off the deep end…lol Thank You! :blush:

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Quite frankly, if I’m the city, I am going to be looking at the bigger economic impact and will not make the decision on the stadium use only. I’m going to want to understand how much revenue is going to be generated each year by property taxes. I am going to want to understand how all that area around it is going to be activated on a daily basis and how much it’s going to contribute. I am going to want to understand how that development might activate the areas adjacent, etc.

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Not everyone.

I love to get an. MLS team. But building a stadium without an awarded franchise that could sit mostly empty is not my idea of a sound investment. I can support an plan and a commitment to use the funds if/ when a team is awarded.

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Just a reminder that the tax money that they are requesting for a sports stadium is the hotel and meal tax which we passed specifically for this purpose so that taxpayer money wouldn’t come from income or real estate or other taxes. The whole purpose is to draw people into the city to spend money in hotels and restaurants. The more people they bring in the more revenue is available for these types of investments. It is a win win situation and if you don’t like the tax then don’t stay in a hotel or eat at a restaurant.

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Does anyone know the balance of our “hotel and meal tax kitty”?

Someone may know the actual numbers but I’ve been looking for it and I think the county gets about $50 million annually from the hotel and meal taxes and it has been growing at a fast pace.

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I don’t disagree I just question how many people an empty soccer stadium brings into the city.

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It will bring in more people than the cricket fields in Morrisville. Not that I’m against cricket fields.

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The article in the N&O says that they’ve secured MORE than 40 acres south of downtown, but inside the Beltline. This makes me wonder if they haven’t, in fact, secured a deal on purchasing the RedRoof Inn as well as the nearly 40 acres belonging to that family.

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I think this is the main question. Soccer fans I’ve talked to swear that if it were downtown it would attract more people, and I agree that it certainly would, but they need to show the numbers.

The average MLS team brings an average of 380,000 people to a home city each year based on per game attendance x number of home games… Thats only 100,000 more than World of Bluegrass brings in a week. That isn’t a slight to soccer, this is just a number that should be out in the open when discussing public funds.

MLS is demanding soccer specific stadiums being built in downtowns, but the 17 home game season and the problems they are seeing booking these facilities in the offseason need to be part of the conversation. (it’d also be a different story if the Cary games were being sold out bc demand for soccer was so pent up.)

I’d hope they secure this money, get a stadium mock and wait until they are awarded a franchise before they even break ground on the stadium portion of this, but thats’ just me.

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Win win. They secured the land, they are fronting the money for the stadium, the partnership with Kane only solidifies deal in a designated area the city has already identified as growth potential. Kane certainly has an excellent track record of high design that makes serious coin (which generates serious tax). Considering they used the city’s own tax estimates regarding growth, 11M a year, in the grand scheme, is tolerable considering this is what the money was designed for in the first place. All that with an estimated ~1.5M net positive into the city coffers.

Outside of being a libertarian and not liking taxes in general, there seems low downside here. Malik alone… red flags. Kane/Malik… I like

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I still struggle with calling this site “downtown”. While it’s less than a mile south of MLK, it’s also 100 feet lower in elevation than Fayetteville St., which visually disconnects it from the city’s core at the ground level. Looking at Google Street view from the Beltline, and presuming that the highest seats at the stadium would be taller than it, you would be able to see the city skyline from it. There’s at least that.
Because it’s not really walkable from the very core of the city, it’s good that Malik and Kane have assembled a lot of land to develop their own district. If significant enough, this project could be a major catalyst for the city. They talk about hotels in that area, and to me that’s a double edged sword. I’d welcome more nice hotel rooms near downtown, but I don’t want to distract from hotel development that’s walkable to the convention center. I don’t want this to become “South Hills” with car dependency. Perhaps connecting this future district to the S. Saunders/Lake Wheeler development, and then to the core of the city, could be the test for NCState’s PRT proposal?
In any case, something significantly different needs to happen with that section of S. Sauders. It’s wide and NOT pedestrian friendly at all. It’s clearly designed for auto access only, and it only gets worse after you pass south under the Beltline. To truly be a district that’s the city’s southern gateway, Kane and Malik need to jump the shark to the west side of S. Saunders and find a way to connect them with some sort of walking bridge. If they were able to do that, this would give the city a branding opportunity and a glorious welcome to the city. Imagine something like this that connects from a building on each side of S. Saunders: KI Studio | Lachlan’s Line Pedestrian & Cycle Bridge I can even imagine a diversion from the Walnut Creek Trail that takes you through the development in almost a high-line experience sort of way. Once across S. Saunders, walkers could hook back to the trail, or continue onto the west side neighborhoods, into the Mayview neighborhood and onto Dix Park and Centennial Campus.
Check out this video of pedestrian bridges. 8 Most Stunning Pedestrian Bridges Around the World - YouTube The High Trestle Trail Bridge in Iowa (3:54 in the video) is another stunning example of what can be done with simple design and high tech lighting. Imagine a bridge that traverses the street and gives both walkers and drivers the experience of our brand identity by referencing the shapes that make up the tree in our new city logo. The bridge can start out with the natural shape leaves and morph into the angular ones. This could also be effective in linking the Rocky Branch Trail into an urban development.

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I am not the biggest fan of using the tax for this either. I get that there was a tax passed to raise funds to encourage economic activity and create more hotel and restaurant use, but I would be a bigger fan of making 10 x $1,00,000 investments or 100 x $100,000 investments a year vs one $10,000,000 stadium one every year for 30 year (or whatever the time frame is). I am curious is Kane/Malik would still make money/everything would pencil without this money? I am not out there protesting this. If it happens it happens, but it is just not how I would prioritize this tax money. Posting on this message board is pretty much all I am doing in “opposition”. 100% for the development and sports team ~10% for using the tax on it.

I have been mulling over an alternative idea for a few days. If there is a big amount of tax money being generated by hotels and restaurants, why don’t we plow that money back into supporting those Industries as a whole? We could fund apprenticeship programs for young people who are starting out in these industries to learn the skills that are the most in demand & hard to fill. We could help with construction loans for new hotels or restaurants. Go around and figure out what these industries need to keep growing organically and help with that. I have been thinking about Frank’s Pizza and how they have been over on New Bern employing people and supplying tax money for this city and this tax for 30 years. Now we are saying, let’s take that tax and spend it all over in one place where a smaller group of people are going to see the lion share of the benefit. If the restaurants and hotels we have build wealth for this tax why not help them do more of that with this money? Instead we are saying, let’s use it to go build a big totally new thing that primarily benefits a small number of owners who may be able to do all of it without the tax money (but why would they if we offer it).

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This pretty much nails my sentiment exactly. I won’t be out there protesting in a picket line. And I would support the team. I just think there are better investments the city could make, then speculating on a future MLS franchise.

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Nothing will be built without MLS’s confirmation of a franchise. What’s important to MLS is showing that funding is definitely in place and the needed governmental agencies are fully on board.

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I think Malik is finally on the right track. Their initial proposal was much too ambitious. If they went with Penmarc you start lining up some serious development dominos.

Union Station/Kane Warehouse
Kane Development of Clancy and Theys site
Kane Development of Block South of Clancy
Dix Park
Lake Wheeler/SSaunders
Potential intersection of Western/SSaunders BRT
City Owned Bain Plant
City and County owned property in the area
Connection Cargill area and Wilmington Street Corridor
Southern Gateway project
Redevelopment Potential of SSaunders and Wiington South of I-40

You have serious positive mojo moving north from Downtown with Smokey Hollow, Seaboard, Devereaux Park, Peden Steel, and that’s going to continue up towards 440 in the north.
Redevelopment to the south has been lagging behind but I think this extends the corridor beyond the southern beltline. Then with the east west BRT bringing TOD’s from WakeMed to Plaza West you start to get the sense of a real positive feedback loop between the cardinal points and downtown.

I think that a southend stadium/mixed use development would fill in a key missing piece that helps define all directions from DT.

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Welcome Welcome OberlinSouth ! You are right on . Raleigh is booming .

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Whatever happens we need less SoHo copies and more original names. Bloodworth, Goodnight, etc.

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There’s already a name for that area: Caraleigh.

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Someone correct me if I’m wrong but Kane and Malik are not asking for money to construct a stadium. They are asking for an ongoing commitment of money ($11M/year?) for ongoing maintenance and support of the stadium. This shows the city’s support for the project so that the MLS people see that the effort is a city-supported effort and not just one man chasing a dream. The tax being asked for is a tax that was specifically designed for this purpose. We also tax ourselves for affordable housing and public schools etc but that is from income taxes and property taxes. This tax is supposed to be paid largely by tourists to help us build tourist attractions.
I drove around the area today and it actually feels very connectable to downtown on the Wilmington Street side. Along S Saunders it feels further away because of the way the bridges were built. It is definitely within the realm of imagination that it could eventually feel a part of downtown as development occurs around Dix Park and Maywood and then around the stadium area. It would be very expensive but I could imagine continuing the downtown grid directly south of Memorial Auditorium to the stadium area.

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