February 17, 2011

AEG offers to be "to be determined" rent on stadium land

Well, this is kinda sorta interesting: AEG submitted its official transaction outline for its proposed $1.35 billion stadium project last night, and included among the potential city revenues was "rent from a proposed ground lease," according the L.A. Times. How much rent? Well, whereas previously it was thought that AEG would only pay a token $1 a year, now the company is offering to pay ... an amount "to be determined"! Woo?

AEG president Tim Leiweke also wrote in an accompanying letter that the stadium would not "divert existing tax revenues," which is usually code for tax-increment financing — in other words, diverting new tax revenues. Which is, in fact, exactly what Leiweke wants to do to help pay off the city's $350 million share of the project:

Although few new details and numbers were included in the proposal, AEG said the city bonds would be repaid using the land lease, fees on stadium tickets, fees on Staples Center tickets, new parking revenue and new advertising revenue from signs that would be installed on the convention center.

The bonds also would be repaid with increased revenue from sales taxes, business licenses taxes, utility taxes and property taxes generated by the stadium and the new, more marketable convention center operation, according to the plan.

In other L.A. stadium news, the city's Blue Ribbon Panel met for the first time today, and immediately set to work insisting that isn't a problem that almost the whole panel is made of up people who've done business with AEG. "Just because they've known someone in the past, I don't think prejudices them in any way shape or form," deputy mayor Austen Beutner told the Associated Press, before insisting that AEG didn't have a hand in picking the panel. Which, you know, hadn't even occurred to me until he suggested it, but now...