March 11, 2011

The facts on AEG's Los Angeles stadium plan

KCET has a great FAQ on the AEG stadium proposal for downtown Los Angeles, laying out exactly who's paying for what. In particular, it makes clear that AEG's "no existing public money" promise is, indeed, a TIF dodge: "in essence Los Angeles would forfeit whatever extra money it would have earned from such a project for the life of the bonds," including rent on the stadium land, parking and ad revenues, and property and sales taxes at the stadium. Since at least some of the money spent at the stadium is currently being spent elsewhere — Los Angelenos aren't bottomless pits of disposable income — this means that, on the whole, L.A. would likely end up losing some tax revenue in the deal.

Other issues raised by KCET:

AEG's proposal, only six pages long, leaves a lot of questions unanswered. For instance, how much does the city stand to lose from a decrease in Convention Center activity during the two or three years of construction, and what plan might AEG offer to help offset the cost? Is there an opportunity cost associated with placing three major event centers right next to each other, when it's unlikely if not impossible to run major events at the same time? What is the impact of the increased traffic in what is already one of the most congested parts of the city?

There's a link to the AEG proposal document, all six pages of it, as well. One-stop shopping for all your L.A. stadium research needs!