Where the Downtown Kings Arena Plan Stands

Bears watching.

As you say, the arena would go on the city-owned part of the land. I believe the huge transit hub that is planned will also be built behind the current train station regardless of Thomas’ issues. Both of those areas are pretty much on the edge of the greater “Railyards” area, the edge bordering downtown. The accessibility of that part of the land isn’t really affected by whatever else gets built on the rest of the Railyards land, and I believe they’ve already build a couple of roads across the Railyards connecting downtown with Richards Blvd.

The financial problems of Thomas Enterprises sucks for the overall development of the entire Railyards area and it certainly delays the complete build-out, but they could move forward on the arena even if Thomas loses the rest of the land to the bank that loaned them all that money, or however it works. Regardless, something will get built on all that land at some point, and someone will make a lot of money from that development. If there’s an arena on the edge of it, that development will likely move a lot quicker and be shaped differently than if there was no arena, but ultimately “The Railyards Development” and “The Railyards Arena” are separate, though linked, processes.

Wasn’t there a similar story not too long ago where we learned that the report was not going to be good but they asked to hold off on releasing the information until a second look could be had at the report?

There is no doubt that Cal Expo is playing hardball and will continue to do so until they have something similar to the Taj Mahal built in Natomas. For small city thinkers, they sure are driving a tough bargain.

I like the pro-active nature of the developer, but again, I think this is why they asked for the report not to be released earlier so they could come up with plan B or C or H…… By telling Cal Expo that this whole thing can work out if they will only release their stake in the property for the other 300+ days of the year, the developer appears to be singling out those folks as the greedy squeaky wheel, trying to take advantage of the situation. If it a fair grounds then fine, we will build your dream fair grounds for the 3 or 4 weeks a year you need it. If it is more than a fair grounds, then stop crying foul because you are going to make a lot of cash off of that property year round.

Someone Google this for me!

The Cal Expo board has no real motivation to do anything. It is easier to sit back and just keep doing the same thing. I am not always a fan of capitalism, but it does mobilize resources and get things done.

There is no financial incentive for a public effort to get this done and, in this case, the public effort has failed, resulted in annual operating deficits, and there has been no progress to change that. So, I agree that getting developers into the mix should provide some results.

I really think Cal Expo will pull the plug on the whole thing at that board meeting next week. Since the consultant has recommended a viable plan to stay put at the same location, that is going to be the safe route to take and simply put, that is what they will opt for. I would love for the whole thing to work out, but I think it’s as good as dead.