San Diego should look to Kansas City for new stadium tips - Ingles

Exploring options for a new Chargers stadium, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders began a three-city U.S. tour of downtown sports venues Wednesday in Kansas City, Mo., where the Sprint Center anchors the nine-block Power & Light District.

The district offers lessons on both sides of the ledger for San Diego.

The 18,000-seat Sprint Center was built in 2007 for $276 million using new hotel and car rental taxes. It draws a million people to more than 100 events a year. And it’s generated $4.3 million for the city through profit-sharing with operator AEG — revenue that has helped offset $13 million in annual construction bond payments.

The entertainment district, on the other hand, is projected to require a $10 million to $15 million city subsidy until 2033 despite early projections it would be a self-sustaining operation.

Kansas City agreed to back the $295 million in bonds it issued to help build the $850 million district. That was when it was predicted to be more successful and full of tenants than it has been.

“These glitzy projects, paid for by tax incentives, do not generate the positive cash flow that would somehow lift up everybody else,” then-Mayor Mark Funkhouser told ABC News a year ago. “It simply doesn’t work.”

Wednesday, as Sanders explored downtown Kansas City in the shadow of the hulking glass Sprint Center, Funkhouser said his opinion hasn’t changed.

Reached in Washington, D.C., where he now works for the Governing Institute, a local government think tank, Funkhouser said downtown districts are draws and remain vibrant for a time — just not as long as the 25 to 30 years it takes to pay down public borrowing costs.

“The city is in the saloon business, and when there is not public safety, when roads and streets are inadequate, when transit is weak or nonexistent, spending money on saloons doesn’t seem like a great idea,” he said.

Derek Klaus, spokesman for the Kansas City Convention & Visitors Association, takes a different view. He said the Sprint Center and the downtown district, which took shape in 2008, transformed an area once known for office buildings.

“The Power & Light District has pretty much redefined night life in Kansas City,” Klaus said. “It has made quite a domino effect on the renaissance of downtown. … Previously, any convention attendees would have to take a cab or take the bus to other areas.”

The downtown district includes dozens of dining and entertainment options, everything from a movie theater to a country bar. A performing arts center will open in September.

Kansas City officials are even considering building more hotels downtown, and current Mayor Sly James, who replaced Funkhouser this year, supports that idea.

Chatter has persisted for years about the possibility and potential impact of having a professional basketball or hockey team play in the Sprint Center.

AEG officials, now intent on building a football stadium in downtown Los Angeles that could entice the Chargers away, said in 2004 they’d land such a tenant in Kansas City.

Yet the $62.5 million, 25-year naming-rights deal Sprint Corp. signed for the Midwestern U.S. arena is reduced to $42.5 million if it never attracts a National Basketball Association or National Hockey League team.

Now observers agree that’s the likely scenario.

Even without a big-time sports tenant, the arena is a draw. Pollstar Magazine, which tracks concerts and other live events, ranked the arena fifth nationally and 13th in the world in ticket purchases for the 2010 calendar year.

Voters made the arena’s construction possible in 2004 when 57 percent of them agreed to boost rental car taxes $4 a day and hotel room taxes $1.50 a night.

In San Diego, Sanders wants voters to weigh in on a Chargers stadium financing plan by November 2012, his final month in office.

Sanders met with James on Wednesday, but he didn’t visit the newly renovated Arrowhead Stadium where the Chiefs play less than 10 miles away.

That’s partly because a renovation like the $375 million stadium overhaul Kansas City completed in 2010 doesn’t fit his vision for a new Chargers stadium. While some San Diego residents say the Chargers should consider upgrading the 44-year-old Qualcomm Stadium in Mission Valley if the team wants new amenities, Sanders does not.

“Rather than spin our wheels and continue to talk about Qualcomm, we need to think about how we can finance a new facility downtown, which activates a large part of downtown and also brings a lot of business opportunities,” Sanders said.

So is that what he saw in Kansas City?

“I’m standing out here, and the place is abuzz,” he said in the early evening. “There are people everywhere. And what is it, Wednesday night tonight?”

Sanders said he would be taking a closer look at the public-private partnerships Kansas City used to develop its downtown, but he was encouraged that the Sprint Center is about as far a walk from the city’s convention center as a Chargers’ East Village stadium would be from San Diego’s convention center. This article was written by Matthew T. Hall and appeared in The San Diego Union-Tribune.