They have done a seriously good job in Sacramento.
The mayor has pulled out all the stops. HereWeStay is a great organization, and thinkbigsacramento.org is exactly what I would have envisioned putting together had we had the resources here. Everything perfect.
Except they don't have the money.
Their plan right now, put forward by City Manager John Dangberg who is a heck of a guy and really gets the value of NBA basketball calls for them to privatize city parking garages.
Essentially they own parking garages that currently provide $9M/year for the general fund, schools and police. That is money the collect this year. It will go up with increases and inflation. They would sell the rights to manage that parking for 50 year for roughly $200M cash up front to pay for the arena.
Lets assume the parking revenue goes up by roughtly 1% a year, simple math increasing $1M in revenue each decade. For the first 10 years they collect $90M. Second 10 years $100M, $110M, $120M, $130M.
Thats $550M of revenue they trade fo $200M cash.
Big problem also that they sell the rights for 50 years and wind up with a facility good for 15-20 years. We had a huge issue with the KeyArena being build with a 20 year lease on 25 year bonds. That was only a 5 year difference. This 50 year lease of parking is pretty insane.
I am a huge arena fan. I don't see any way that a city could justify $9M out of its general fund right now. VERY tough sell.