Love the idea! Hopefully better than this stadium in Osaka
(Granted, these are just model homes per snopes, but it’s a funny concept)
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That property value is gonna skyrocket if there’s a zombie apocalypse.
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That’s a great idea to keep them accountable similar to job pledges where incentives are contingent on jobs created versus promised
Some info on the new hotel near Carter-Finley / PNC Arena.
A 4-story, 110-room hotel near Highway 54 and I-40. Home2 Suites Raleigh, a Hilton hotel. It’s a an extended-stay accommodation. Near Carter-Finley Stadium, the N.C. State Fairgrounds and the PNC Arena.
This would be sharp if it was ‘on-campus’ with the arena and stadium. Like right between them. With a roof-top entertainment area (like the DTR Residence Inn). But, this one will be closer to the interstate. Not walking distance.
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Exactly, no where near walking distance. I think that this article was trying to find a story where one didn’t exist. That location is just off I-40 with Raleigh on one side and Cary on the other. A good place for a hotel, but not worthy of relationship to PNC, imho. Otherwise, the other hotels in that area could just as easily been worthy of the same coverage…
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We worry about a stadium sitting empty, but we seem to be okay with thousands upon thousands of parking spaces, in eyesore state garages, sitting empty every evening, weekend, and on public holidays. These garages carve out a huge dead zone near the very center of the city and have stalls for singular occupancy use only during workdays when their “owner” shows up to work. Oh, and while tax payers paid for those garages and continue to pay for their upkeep, joe-citizen will never get to use them.
Give me a stadium any day of the week that has potential to grow its use model and give me something back for my investment.
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I hate the parking lots in NE downtown. Luckily some of them are in use on the weekends for the Burning Coal Theater and some wedding venues, but for the most part I’d rather them be something else.
Maybe a movie theater?
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Looking for something else and came across this I forgot I had made. I know how unrealistic it would be to get the fed govt to move and build a new courthouse and pretty tight site would require some creative design. But man, Hargett Street would feel like a European city on gamedays! Could have a plaza on the south end with retail kiosks similar to City Plaza. And combined with the redevelopment of the Hargett/Bloodworth/Martin/Person block, would probably not be a dead zone to the south. Dead zones on the north and east would probably be welcomed by Oakwood honestly.
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Looks like the “dead zone” a block to the east is a cemetery…
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Well, can’t get more literally dead than that.
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I won’t pretend to be an e-sports expert but can’t deny that competitive gaming is taking off. Raleigh (and Cary) need to partner with Epic Games to invest in local events and potentially a venue like this new $50 million gaming arena in Philly. It will also be used for concerts, corporate events, comedy shows, and TED talks.
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I really like this idea.
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Hoo boy, lots going on in this thread. Anyway, gotta give Zach credit for not burying the lede in that Malik interview. The headline “North Carolina FC owner says proposed downtown stadium is not contingent on an MLS franchise” really puts the funding request in stark relief. The development at Penmarc is going to happen either way, so the funding request would be solely about the soccer stadium and not any knock-on effects.
I’ve seen a couple of posts contending that the soccer stadium will “pay for itself” with all the tax revenues that will start rolling in once Raleigh gets a franchise in America’s third-most-popular club soccer league. But not only have other stadiums in other cities failed to pay for themselves, but a quick check of the math shows why.
At last count, Malik was seeking $11 million a year from funds from the Wake County Room Occupancy & Food and Beverage Tax. The tax rates are 6 percent on occupancy stays and 1 percent on prepared food and beverage. My understanding is that about half of the kitty comes from hotel stays and half from food and beverage. So to break even on the hotel portion, the stadium would need to generate about $5.5 million in new tax revenues. At 6 percent, that would necessitate nearly $92 million in new hotel spending. Now, they cost of a hotel room can vary, but even assuming a very generous $150 average rate, that works out to more than 600,000 hotel stays.
The median attendance for an MLS team this year was 323,547. And, of course, it’s likely that only a very tiny fraction of spectators came from out of town and booked a hotel room. And the math for the food and beverage side of the tax is even more daunting.
Anyway, this all just goes to show that hotel and beverage tax revenue is not free money. Every dollar spent to subsidize a stadium is a dollar that can’t be spent to support, museums, arts and culture in the region.
@JosABanks @wmgadd Although there have been a few cool rehabilitation projects like Las Arenas in Barcelona, it’s really difficult to convert a stadium into anything other than a stadium, unfortunately. Baseball, though, has at least done better than most at getting longer lives out of stadiums (sometimes). Fenway and Wrigley are the iconic examples, but Dodger Stadium and Camden Yards look destined to have that kind of staying power as well, and probably some others. Any city even thinking about subsidizing any sort of stadium should probably press hard on how the builders are planning to ensure that their stadium enjoys a similar sort of longevity.
@mike I’m an attorney and I’ve practiced in the federal courthouse building downtown. Not only would razing a federal courthouse to build a soccer stadium be “unrealistic,” it would be an absolutely terrible idea on the merits. The courthouse is where federal civil and criminal cases are handled for one-third of the state. Aside from the irreplaceable architectural character we would be losing, it would have to be rebuilt elsewhere, probably at a cost of roughly $150 million to $200 million, possibly more. Heck of a price to pay for a soccer stadium.
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Is it the general consesus that tax money should only be spent on things that have positive cash flow and should not be used on things that make the city a better place to live and work and visit but might not generate a large profit? I was under the impression that the hotel and food tax was exactly for the purpose of supporting arts and entertainment and sports venues that need support and therefore apply for money from the tax revenues. I don’t think $11 M is enough to build a stadium so it seems that Malik and Kane are putting in a huge amount of personal money to build the facility and are asking for ongoing maintenance/marketing/etc support of the stadium. Like they would build it and the tax would be used to maintain it and promote it? It seems more than reasonable to me. Maybe I’m missing something.
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It’s $11 million per year, for 30 years, for a grand total of $330 million in taxpayer contribution. (Or at least that was the most recent ask, which was made before Malik and Kane announced they were building at Penmarc.)
Most MLS stadiums have been built for much less than that, actually. So the plan, as Malik is posing it, is that the taxpayers would put up 100 percent of the cost of the stadium, and North Carolina FC would put up 0 percent of the money but get to keep all of the profits. No, seriously, that is proposal that’s on the table here. (Yes, Malik and Kane would be financing the construction of all the other development in the area, but that’s all expected to be quite profitable for them.)
The issue here isn’t whether taxpayer money should be spent on things that can’t generate a profit. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. The soccer team is a privately-owned, for-profit company. If it wants to make a major capital investment to grow its business, that’s great, but local government is generally not in the business of paying to construct purpose-built facilities and then handing them over to privately-owned for-profit companies free of charge, except for this weird exception that is often made when the business is a pro sports team.
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Now be fair…
Every dollar spent to “subsidize” a stadium is a dollar that can’t “subsidize” museums, arts, and culture in the region…
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It would seem to me that the city could come back to Malik and Kane and ask for something in return for the ongoing support that they are seeking. What if the city required that they give the city access to X-number of days per year that city can host events at no cost to them? Say, July 4th for fireworks, graduations for public high schools, cultural festivals like the Bluegrass festival, etc.
If the city could make a deal like that, in addition to increased revenues that the project itself will contribute, then I think a deal can be made.
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In theory Raleigh and Wake will continue to grow. Projects like a stadium close to downtown are a part of that growth which should show significant increases in the money generated by the hotel tax over the next 30 years. Every year that $11M is going to be a smaller percentage of the tax revenue than the year before, and by 2050 it probably won’t get you that far. I’m not sure that $11M a year would service the debt on a $200M loan, so I don’t look at it as the taxpayers paying for the stadium. 30 years ago $150K would buy you the median house in Raleigh. It doesn’t go very far today.
They’ve said the stadium isn’t contingent on the funding so it should happen either way. I do think that the stadium will probably increase the overall density and speed at which the overall site develops. There is momentum that comes along with any development project. There is also efficiency from offices sharing parking deck spaces with uses that continue after hours. Penmarc could have been a Super Walmart just as easily as a stadium and mixed use TOD. It’s remarkable that there’s not a Home Depot on the site and we can probably owe that to the fact that downtown wasn’t that attractive for the last 30 years.
Part of the reason they have the hotel tax is that the facilities it’s used for raise the profile of the city/county on a national level. Stadiums are not an ordinary development project, they’re relatively rare this close in proximity to a downtown compared to office buildings or residential uses, or stadiums in other cities. Media describing the amenities of Raleigh mentions us as the home of the Hurricanes, the Bluegrass Festival, Marbles, Dix Park, etc. If this gets us an MLS team in the next 8-10 years the publicity of being on national television weekly during the season will have a bigger impact on Raleigh’s profile than anything else we could do for $11M. That’s the gamble that NCFC is asking Wake County to take.
I’m not a proponent of entertainment taxes to begin with. I just don’t see how any the other proposals have the potential to have a greater impact on Wake County. Maybe the Commission will decide it’s only worth $5M a year, but I don’t fault Malik and Kane at all for putting in the request when this is exactly the type of development the fund was started for.
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I was thinking, if we could pull this new stadium thing off , what are the chances an ownership group could be formed to lure one of those AAF franchises to Raleigh? Seems like that could be a thing Raleigh could do. Hopefully, the league can gain some fan support and stick around awhile. I know how it is with startup leagues!
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Interesting observation. Tom Dundon, owner of the Hurricanes, just happens to also own the entire AAF league (or something pretty close… whatever $150,000,000 gets you).
Only time will tell if the league even makes it but if it does, who knows?
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