Latest news with #stadium
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Kansas City Royals confirm affiliate bought Aspiria campus mortgage in Overland Park
The Kansas City Royals confirmed Wednesday that an affiliate purchased the mortgage on the Aspiria campus in Overland Park. The news, first reported by The Kansas City Business Journal, was confirmed by the team in a statement Wednesday afternoon. However, the statement also says the team has not selected a stadium location.
New York Times
3 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
America Can Still Build Homes — for Professional Sports Teams
People who say that the United States can't build anything anymore must not be sports fans. Barely a year goes by without the debut of a sparkling new stadium or arena, often in the very cities where it's most difficult to build almost anything else. A $2.3 billion baseball stadium in the Bronx. A 70,000-seat football stadium in the middle of Los Angeles County. A basketball arena on the San Francisco waterfront. The latest example, announced last month by the mayor of Washington, D.C., is a $3.8 billion plan to build a stadium for the local football team, the Washington Commanders, on 180 acres of public land just two miles from the Capitol. Washington is not an easy place to build housing, but no one should doubt the capital city's capacity to build a stadium. The city opened a basketball arena in 1997, a baseball stadium in 2008 and a soccer stadium in 2018. In Washington, as in other American cities, homes for sports teams are the only kinds of homes that still get built. The obvious reason is that sports are popular. Especially the N.F.L. When the Commanders win, Washington wakes up in a better mood. It doesn't require a political science degree to understand why the city's mayor, Muriel Bowser, is eager to persuade the team to return to Washington after a few decades in the Maryland suburbs. She wants to be popular, too. But Ms. Bowser's unseemly, almost desperate eagerness to shovel money into the maw of the team's billionaire owner is also driven by a bleaker reality. Cities build stadiums in part because it's so hard to build almost anything else. Municipal leaders fixate on big-ticket projects because it takes so much money and time to obtain the necessary permission to do anything that only the big things are worth attempting. The Commanders stadium, like a growing number of stadium projects in other cities, is being sold as the centerpiece of a broader development. The city says it will eventually include up to 6,000 housing units, some of them subsidized for lower-income families. The unspoken part is that it would be much harder for anyone to build housing on that land without a stadium attached. An accumulation of reasonable concerns about development has produced an unreasonable system. There are no standard rules; no automatic approvals. Washington has 164 different kinds of zoning districts, and even so, many building projects are treated as exceptions. Anyone who wishes to build must run the gantlet. Stadiums do pass through this process. Local opposition in San Francisco prevented the construction of an arena at the team's preferred location. The Chicago Bears have spent the past four years pursuing two separate stadium plans, hoping that at least one will be approved. The D.C. plan still requires approval by the City Council. Team owners make enough money from stadiums to justify the effort. It's the smaller projects with slimmer margins that die on the drawing board. In Northwest D.C., there's a parking lot developers have tried and failed to build on for 25 years. Because the system makes it hard to build anything other than luxury projects, cities are increasingly for rich people. And make no mistake: Stadiums are playgrounds for the wealthy, thinly disguised as public spaces. Teams once feared that showing games on television would suppress ticket sales. They have learned to sell in-person viewing as a luxury experience. Fans of the Los Angeles Rams who want to buy season tickets at the team's new stadium must first purchase a 'seat license' that can cost as much as $100,000. The tickets are not included — just the right to buy tickets. Washington plans to provide more than $1 billion in cash and subsidies for its stadium project, a number city officials have sought to justify by calling it an investment. Kevin Donahue, D.C.'s city administrator, told The Wall Street Journal that the proposed stadium 'is not a luxury but a fundamental necessity to grow our city again.' If this is at all true, is it only in the sad sense that the city needs to give money to a football team in order to muster public support for housing. The stadium itself is the very definition of a luxury project. Building a stadium would employ workers; building apartment buildings and stores and offices on the site reserved for the stadium would employ more of them. People spend money at stadiums, but those people overwhelmingly are local residents who otherwise would spend that money in the same community. Football stadiums, in particular, are rarely used. The Commanders' current home hosts about 10 games and a similar number of other events, like concerts, each year. That's it. Really. An economy is money in motion; a stadium is a big cement bowl where most days, nothing happens. Academic studies have repeatedly concluded that public spending on stadiums is a bad investment. Indeed, one of the leading authorities on the subject has memorably described that conclusion as one of the rare subjects on which economists have approached unanimity. Better investments would yield bigger returns. One can only imagine a world in which the mayors of American cities were equally motivated by the economic benefits of public transit. But it's much less expensive, much easier and much more fun to build a gussied-up grandstand than to invest in faster commutes or high-quality public education. The $3.8 billion price for the Commanders stadium is a lot of money, but it is a small fraction of what it would cost to build a neighborhood on the same land. Our stadiums are monuments to the poverty of our civic ambitions and our inability to summon the collective will to use the land we have for the things we need. They are distractions from our inability to build anything else.
ABC News
4 days ago
- Business
- ABC News
What you need to know about the Tasmanian government's fast-track legislation for the Macquarie Point AFL stadium
After weeks of talking about it, the Tasmanian government has released its stadium-enabling legislation for public consultation. The legislation takes a lot of reading, with a 140-page report delving into lots of detail. Here are some of the key takeaways. The last cost estimate for the stadium, released late last year, was $775 million. That has now jumped by a whopping $170 million. The top line: the stadium is now officially estimated to cost $945 million, getting close to the $1 billion price tag — which stadium opponents like the Greens predicted long ago. There are three main reasons for that. Firstly, the earlier estimates left out quite a few items — such as food and beverage facilities, advertising signage and audio-visual systems — that the government had previously hoped would be paid for by a private partner. But it has now decided that the Macquarie Point Development Corporation (MPDC) — the body in charge of transforming Macquarie Point into "a vibrant mixed-use precinct" — will do the build, then try to bring in the private operators. That additional cost comes to $75 million. There are also some new additions, mostly due to requests from cricket organisations. They include a chairman's lounge, a tier-one media box and additional food and beverage offerings. Not to mention another previously left-out calculation, the relocation and fit-out of the heritage-listed Goods Shed. These two things — the new additions and the Goods Shed relocation and fit-out — total $57 million. Finally, the cost blowouts or "design clarifications" that arose, including expanding the internal floor area, cost $38 million. As to what it all means for the government's "$375 million and not a red cent more promise"? Well, the government maintains that is the only capital it will put in, with the gap funded by borrowings. Those borrowings will be repaid through land sales and private partnerships. That is the million, or billion, dollar question. Some things still haven't been factored in, such as the multi-storey underground car park, now reduced to two stories from three. The cost of the northern access road, which the government argues is necessary, is yet to be factored in — although it will be included in this Thursday's budget. It is not out of the ordinary for a major infrastructure project to blow out in cost in Tasmania, but MPDC chief executive Anne Beach says the corporation is confident in the work they have done, and contingencies have been built into the cost estimate. "We're at 50 per cent detailed design. From here, we're looking at continuing to clarify and to make innovations and look for efficiencies," Ms Beach said. "It includes 7 per cent design contingency and 10 per cent construction contingency. That's over $100 million of this budget is contingency." The government claims it has addressed the vast majority of the issues raised in the Tasmanian Planning Commission's draft report through its Enabling Legislation Report, released on Tuesday alongside the draft enabling legislation itself. While they may have been addressed, they have not necessarily been dealt with — which now means the project must satisfy 35 conditions for approval. The conditions include things such as an evacuation plan, flood mitigation and noise mitigation, as well as limiting the hours for events at the stadium: According to the legislation, the answer to this is the minister for industry, business and resources — currently Eric Abetz. He is in charge of ensuring the terms and conditions of each relevant permit are met. Other agencies have "endorsement and enforcement responsibilities". For example, the flood and emergency plan would fall within the remit of the police commissioner and the fire and emergency services coordinator. But largely, it's the secretary of the Department of State Growth, who reports to Mr Abetz. The minister has lots of power, which has already drawn the ire of crossbenchers including Greens Leader Rosalie Woodruff. "This legislation is draconian and bringing it to parliament is an utter farce," she said. The bill gives the minister the power to amend any relevant planning scheme or order if it is inconsistent with the stadium. The minister will also be able to issue more permits if they are essential to the operation of the stadium — but they will need to consult with the regulators, and any additional permits will require approval from both houses of parliament. The minister can also amend the project scope or conditions attached to the permit — but only after they check with Hobart City Council and all regulators. Although if the changes are "minor", the minister will not need to run them past the council or regulators. A minor change would be one that: To the annoyance of Cricket Tasmania and Cricket Australia, the project still contains a roof. But both the government and MPDC are determined to keep the roof and ensure cricket can be played in the stadium — particularly because it was a key part of the financial case for the stadium. Ms Beach confidently said that resolving cricket-related concerns — particularly the shadows cast by the roof beams — was well underway. "We've … looked at other venues and looked at how they've managed those and found that the dispersed nature of the shadow is quite minor when you experience it on the field," she said. She said the MPDC would be "looking at materials and at some of the way our structural members are positioned". In its submission to the Tasmanian Planning Commission, the TSO outlined its support for the stadium and AFL team, but it was worried about construction and event noise. To overcome this, the TSO suggested extra soundproofing for its Federation Concert Hall, restrictions on construction noise and vibration, temporary relocation to other venues for time-critical operations such as recording, and compensation if events are cancelled. The government has agreed to fund these measures at a cost of $4.45 million, although it is unclear if this was included in the total stadium cost. The stadium is on a tight timeline, and, given how many other big projects get locked up in appeals, it makes sense the government would want to prevent this scenario. The legislation makes it clear: there will be no appeal rights. In fact, it goes as far as saying the bill "extinguishes all rights of appeal", including the right to appeal to a court or tribunal or seek a review under the Judicial Review Act 2000. The bill is out for public consultation for three weeks, then it will be tabled in parliament and up for debate. The government is hoping to pass it through the Legislative Council in July, which requires the support of three Upper House independents. If the legislation passes, the Project of State Significance process will end. And the stadium will be approved with plenty of conditions to meet. The government wants swift progress, with Mr Abetz hoping building can start later this year.
CBS News
4 days ago
- Business
- CBS News
Baltimore Ravens announce phase two of renovation project at M&T Bank Stadium
The Baltimore Ravens have announced phase two of "The Next Evolution" renovation project at M&T Bank Stadium. The project was announced in December 2023, and is slated for completion by 2026. All together, the cost of the renovation is estimated to cost about $450 million. What do the phase two renovations include? The stadium will add 29 new video displays around the stadium. An expanded 216-foot display at Gate A will be replaced the current RavensVision scoreboard. More than 100 televisions throughout the stadium will also be replaced with larger screens by 2026. The original ticket office on the stadium's west side is being converted into a 4,900-square-foot retail store, featuring RFID self-checkout, video panels and an LED player-jersey display. A former retail space at Gate A will become a walk-through Raveneous Chicken location. The new setup includes self-serve food slides and reach-in beverage coolers designed to reduce wait times. Upgrades at the North Plaza A revitalized North Plaza will serve as the main entrance, with two large structures flanking the gates. The east structure will house a 6,600-square-foot retail space with a second-floor hospitality area. Open year-round, the store will feature RFID self-checkout, Nike displays and a jersey customization shop. The west structure will include an open-air tailgate and concert venue with three levels of viewing, a main stage and an indoor sports bar on the main level. The Kevin Byrne Press Box, relocated to the southeast corner in 2024, will receive additional upgrades before the 2025 NFL season. New club memberships for 2025 season Three new club memberships are being offered to personal seat license owners for the 2025 season. The Champions Club, located behind the west end zone, will house two bars celebrating each Super Bowl victory. Members get all-inclusive food and beverage options, and access to private restrooms. The Trust, presented by M&T Bank, offers an ultra-premium experience on the south side. Members can view the Ravens' player tunnel at the 50-yard line and access the post-game press conference room. New Legends Suites in the west end zone provide field-level seating with access to a private suite area and members-only social space. The area will also include a sushi bar.
Washington Post
4 days ago
- Business
- Washington Post
Missouri to hold special session on aid for tornado victims plus Chiefs and Royals stadiums
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri lawmakers are to kick off a special session Monday to consider aid for tornado victims and a package of financial incentives aimed at keeping the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals from leaving the state for new or improved facilities in neighboring Kansas. Gov. Mike Kehoe announced the special session Tuesday, less than two weeks after a deadly tornado hit St. Louis and the Legislature wrapped up its work without giving final approval to a late-developing plan that would authorize state bonds for the Chiefs and Royals valued at up to half the cost of the stadium projects.
