|
| |
07/31/06 Not going to
read about it in The Dallas Managed
News.
It's been almost 10 years since Ross, Jr. and Tommy
Hicks spent $4 million of their own money to get their hands on $150 million of
our money. In
The Dallas Managed News
'
5 years on,
AAC gleams, development digs in
, Dave Levinthal covers
the arena's 5 year birthday and gives Jr., Tommy and their carnival barker Con
Jerk/Ron Kirk a chance to say "told you so" -- except their current fabrications
are as bogus as the lies they told in 1997 up to the election in January, 1998.
 |
5 years
on, AAC gleams, development digs in
Saturday, July 29, 2006
By DAVE LEVINTHAL / The Dallas Morning News |
... factor in more than 1,000 concerts, sporting
events and other attractions witnessed by at least 13 million patrons, and
that's a fifth anniversary to brag about.
It's especially auspicious
considering American Airlines Center's shaky start.
"It's
certainly, in modern time, the best investment Dallas has ever made.
Period," said Ross Perot Jr., who as owner of the Dallas Mavericks in
the 1990s, pushed for construction of the arena while simultaneously
proposing a surrounding mixed-use real estate development now known as
Victory.
Mr. Perot's Hillwood development
company teamed up with Dallas Stars owner and Southwest Sports Realty
principal Tom Hicks to build the arena, which in 2001
replaced nearby Reunion Arena as North Texas' largest indoor athletic and
entertainment facility.
... A Dallas Area Rapid Transit train line now
runs by it. And the Victory area is fast resembling an extension of
downtown, with the skeletons of future buildings filling recently vacant
land.
"We have underpromised and
overdelivered," said Ron Kirk, who, as Dallas mayor in the late 1990s,
strongly advocated the arena's construction and Victory's development.
"When you can leverage public
investment to leverage private development in the way we did, you serve the
public much better."
No other Dallas
project has commanded so much public investment. Few have produced as
much debate over merit and value to taxpayers.
... In 1998, Dallas voters approved the
arena's $230 million funding package in one of the closest citywide ballots
in history: 62,861 to 61,237.
... the 72-acre Victory development never
proceeded as conceived.
... The venture promised 300,000 square feet of
retail ? plus residential and office space ? in
exchange for $43 million in public investment that the Dallas City
Council already had approved.
... But Hillwood pressed on with Victory, and by
2005, passers-by began seeing evidence of construction. That building
accelerated this year, marked most notably when the 33-story W Hotel opened
last month. Adjacent retail, office and residential buildings are near
completion.
Still, the
development is less than half completed, and its taxable value about
one-third, when compared with original outlooks.
... Mr. Perot said. "We always wished [the
Palladium plan] would have worked out. But Victory will be bigger. It's
going to be higher density."
Within 10
years, the Victory project will match or exceed the most optimistic of
projections from the 1990s, Mr. Hicks said.
... said Dallas Assistant City Manager Ryan Evans,
... "Without the American Airlines Center, without
the two professional sports teams playing there, the energy from downtown
would be gone," Mr. Evans said.
... Knowing what they know today, Mr. Hicks said,
voters would have "easily passed" the arena construction package eight years
ago.
... Through 2018, the public
is scheduled to directly invest $185.3 million in the AAC/Victory project
?
... "I still have the same problem with it: The
city did not cut a good deal. The city got the shaft," said former council
member Donna Blumer, who in 1997 voted against the arena funding package.
While the arena is a proven success,
that alone doesn't justify, or vindicate, the funding deal struck years ago,
Mrs. Blumer said.
And had the arena not been built?
Developers still would have improved the property, she said, given its
lucrative location just north of the downtown freeway loop and west of
burgeoning Uptown.
"We had rich
robber barons use their influence on weak politicians. This
experience has taught a lot of citizens that you can't trust bureaucrats and
can't trust politicians who are currying favor with the elite," said Sharon
Boyd, who helped lead a residents' campaign against the arena.
... Said Mr. Kirk: "This is not only a good deal,
it's a very good deal."
... Mr. Hicks projects that
the arena will last at least another 40 years.
... He and Mr. Perot contend that Victory will
soon generate its own gravity, attracting more development and luring large
companies to the area.
And without AAC in the center of it
all, they said, none of this would have been possible.
"One or two [companies] soon," Mr.
Perot said of corporate relocations. "In 10 or 15 years, you'll see 10 or 15
companies from the suburbs moving back in." |
Ross, Jr. would have you
believe that building a second basketball arena is "the best investment Dallas
has ever made". Easy for him to say, because he clearly is totally
shameless. Someone else might have a tough time making such a ludicrous
claim.
I told Dave I was disappointed in the article -- that it seemed like a puff
piece for Con Jerk, Jr. and Tommy H to make excuses for not delivering on their
1997 promises.
Hicks and Ross, Jr. have had the benefits of tax abatements, use of our eminent
domain rights to steal another developer's project -- still they are way behind
on their promises.
They even got the city council to force DART to divert its rail alignment so it
runs on the West side of the arena, away from the residents and businesses of
Uptown and Turtle Creek. The poor West End businesses (who foolishly
backed the arena sales tax) have not only been cut out of the benefits of the
new arena, the Hicks/Perot mafia made sure their preferred DART light rail
alignment (which Con Jerk and his puppets supported) does not even go to the
West End now. The original DART headquarters was in the West End area,
where all the old rail lines converged.
We told the voters that the arena would be self-contained with bars and
restaurants, and that eventually arena patrons would not bother going as far
away as the West End. We were right.
With West End restaurants (including Dick's Last Resort, et al) deserting the
area for lack of customers, who will be left to turn out the lights down there?
Every possible advantage has been given to Ross, Jr. and Tommy H, but their
progress can't compare with the Harwood International developments just East of
Victory, as Jim Schutze reports in:
 |
|
... "Don't you think it's
worthwhile for the city to offer developers tax
breaks if doing it encourages development?"
... You mean always? Give
them all tax breaks? Hell no. The city's already $10
billion in the hole on deferred maintenance. What,
do you want us to give away the city's whole income
so we can go $26 kabillion in the hole?
Figure this.
If a developer is building something on prime
ground--an area everybody wants to get into
already--then why does he need an incentive? This is
America. People actually do business here without
government subsidies.
A few weeks
ago I toured a 31-story luxury condominium tower
slated to open next spring in Uptown at Wolf and
McKinnon streets, near the Tollway and just south of
Reverchon Park. It's called "Azure." Just "Azure."
... And you know what I
really love about it? We're not paying for it.
Not a nickel.
They didn't ask the city for one dime to be paid to
them from my tax money. I am filled with the pride
of non-ownership.
The obvious
contrast--and subject of much publicity since its
recent opening--is the W, a
luxury hotel with condominium units half a mile
southwest of Azure in Victory,
...
I wrote about how much money you and I are contributing to
Victory a couple weeks ago ("Sticker
Shock," June 29).
... If Harwood
International was willing to pay for some very hot
dirt near downtown Dallas and then shoulder the full
cost of putting this top-quality building on it--all
on its own nickel with no local tax subsidy--why
do we assume we have to pay other people to date us?
... Harwood put a foot on
that edge of Uptown in 1982 with the Rolex Building
and then spread its way out McKinnon Street with the
Centex Building, then the Jones-Day Building, then
the International Center Building completed in 2000.
All of their properties are contiguous and joined by
paths and skywalks. They call the whole development
"International Center."
... The park is open to
the public. It didn't cost the public a dime.
Harwood maintains the park at its own expense.
... The Harwood people
wouldn't talk to me about their competitors or city
tax policy. But you and I can figure this out for
ourselves. Every time the city
grants a major subsidy to one developer, it screws
all the other developers who are going into roughly
that same niche in the market but don't get a
subsidy.
... the basic idea of TIFs when they started
was that they would be used to spur development in
very risky areas, where sane developers would fear
to tread without serious incentives. Here's the
problem: The Dallas City
Council wants to give all the TIF money to the rich,
powerful suck-ups who can invite them to the charity
ball, and they're totally gutless half the
time when it comes to projects that could really use
the help.
... John Ware, who
was city manager in the '90s when Duncan was trying
to get this deal done, wouldn't touch it with a
10-foot pole, and neither would most of the city
council. No subsidy from this city, sister.
... The city should use
tax subsidies to encourage high-risk, high-value
developments that won't get done without subsidies.
But it should not give tax subsidies to sure-thing
developments that are going to get done, subsidy or
not.
... What we get from the
city instead is a lot of inconsistency, which just
creates chaos. Mayor Laura Miller, for example, has
been 95 percent steadfast in opposing incentives for
people who don't need them. But she supported
incentives for Lucy Crow Billingsley's new 7-Eleven
headquarters building in the arts district.
... I hated the incentives
handed out after the Billingsley deal to
kabillionaire oilman Ray Hunt for his new
headquarters downtown. But I have to admit: If Ray
sees Laura dishing city dough to Lucy, then Ray has
a right to want some city dough too.
... I guess it wouldn't be
right to turn down wavy-haired developers if you've
been generous with bald guys in the past.
...
|
Harwood International has done
all their buildings, public areas and green space WITHOUT any taxpayer subsidy.
That's the equivalent of someone completing construction of a house all alone
with one hand tied behind them before their competitor is half way through his
construction project with his crew of 10.
I've said it before -- and I'll say it again -- and I'm sure I will say it at
some future point:
Ross Perot, Jr. is the ultimate welfare baby.
The guy is the son of Ross Perot, who made his billions by landing a government
project. So much for a family history of free enterprise. You can't
expect Jr. to his risk his own corporate money when he learned so much
from Daddy about leveraging crooked politicians. Boy, did he find a couple
of crooks at City Hall when he needed them in Con Jerk and City Manager Ware.
Levinthall expands on Donna Blumer's concern about Reunion arena in:
|
|
Once in
middle of it all, Reunion now out of it;
Not much happens anymore inside its boxy
walls now that the larger, more modern American Airlines Center gobbles up
the bulk of Dallas' professional sporting events and major concerts.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
By DAVE LEVINTHAL / The Dallas Morning News |
Remember Reunion Arena?
... Sure, there's a prayer festival here, a
college basketball game there. Last year, it sheltered people forced from
their homes by Hurricane Katrina.
But since the Dallas Sidekicks indoor
soccer team folded in 2004, and the Dallas Desperados arena football team
bolted to the AAC the same year, this city-owned facility is without a
regular tenant.
... "We have no immediate plans for changing
Reunion Arena," said Dallas Assistant City Manager Ryan Evans, the
government's top economic development official.
"But it's clear that eventually the
land is going to have to be redeveloped."
A noncompete
clause in American Airlines Center's development agreement allows it first
crack at most events suitable for its size.
... This year, a deal involving Dallas government,
the Woodbine Development Corp. and an entertainment group led by Billy Bob
Barnett of Billy Bob's Texas honky-tonk fame ...
As structured, the deal would have deeded Reunion to Woodbine, which planned
to demolish the facility this decade, in exchange for land near the Dallas
Convention Center on which the city planned to partner with Mr. Barnett's
group to build an entertainment complex.
... Mayor Laura Miller has suggested that Reunion
Arena, or its land, would make a fine site for a casino, especially given
development that she expects will happen over the next decade along
downtown's section of the Trinity River Corridor.
But such gambling remains outlawed in
Texas, and the Legislature hasn't seriously considered legalizing it.
Council member Pauline Medrano, for
one, hopes legislators reconsider. Her council District 2 includes Reunion
Arena. ... |
Con Jerk and John Ware wanted
to give Reunion Arena to Jr. and Tommy H from the get go -- give it to them for
demolition, when we owed over $18 million on Reunion. When even the polls
of the pro-arena crowd showed Dallas voters did not want Reunion demolished, the
council hastily entered into a one-sided deal that allowed American Airlines
Center people the right to run Reunion and tied the city to a non-compete
clause. Just after a couple of years of running Reunion into the ground
and diverting every possible venue over to the AAC, the AAC people advised the
council they were exercising their contract rights to dump Reunion back on the
city with that non-compete clause in tact. Another great job of contract
negotiating by Con Jerk/Ron Kirk and former City Manager John Ware.
We told voters Reunion would be demolished eventually because Tommy H and Ross,
Jr. could not allow it to compete with THEIR arena. They need every
possible dime of revenue to make their deal work for THEM. It does not
generate tax revenue for your and my city needs, like more police and improved
streets in OUR neighborhoods, but it certainly generates $$ to be spent INSIDE
the Victory project.
Never forget that just a few months after the arena sales tax election, John
Ware took a position with a Tom Hicks company, earning half a million ($500,000) annually,
which was twice his city manager salary, LESS THAN SIX MONTHS AFTER HE GAVE AWAY
OUR FARM.
Then there's that pesky little scandal
The Dallas Managed News
sat on until August, 1998 (when everyone is out of town) AFTER the arena sales
tax election in January, 1998 and the Trinity Bonddoogle in June, 1998. Con Jerk's lovely bride Matrice had been
given $750,000 in stock options in a Hicks corporation for serving a few months
on a Tom Hicks' board as his token Black Woman. The
DMN reporter
admitted to me he had the information before the election, but didn't want to
"taint" the results. Belo Corp. being an investor in "Victory" might
have also swayed his lack of journalistic ethics. See
Hicks & Mrs.
Kirk to read the
DMN
7/11/99 story, headlined "Hicks cites race, gender in board offer".
At every level, the contract Ware and Con Jerk negotiated with Ross, Jr. and
Tommy Hicks should be void per basic conflict of issues for all parties
involved. We told you it was a bad deal.
We were right.
We told you the added tax to our hotel/motel room rates and daily car rentals
would hurt, if not kill, our convention business. Even with New Orleans
out of the convention business now, our big, new convention center sits empty
much more than not. Even the hookers in the sex clubs aren't enough draw
to get conventioneers to Dallas now. We
were right.
I'm a big fan of my State Rep. Rafael Anchia, but he's made a huge mistake in
North Dallas linking up with Con Jerk and Commissioner John Wiley Price.
I'm already committed to Darrell Jordan in the Mayor's race, but I would support
Gary Griffith/Sandra Dee before I would vote for someone being promoted by Con
Jerk.
You are known by your friends, and we know what Ron Kirk/Con Jerk
did to us as mayor.
Obviously, Belo sees him as their guy. They are playing the same
promotional game that Con Jerk got from D Magazine and
The Dallas Managed News
. You can expect any day to have a free
DMN
hanging on your door with Anchia's picture on the top fold of their front page.
They've did his first puff piece on lower fold of the front page with Gromer
Goffer's 7/28/06 story. But, that was in an edition that people have to
buy, and nobody much buys the
DMN
anymore, figuratively or literally.
Is Raphael Anchia the reason Carol Reed (Con Jerk's former White Shadow) has
been silent about which candidate she is going to manage? |
|
|
08/01 Michael
Davis:
I have nothing against Mr. Anchia.
I am impressed with some of the things he has
tried to do in office.
My major beef is that I am sick
of Blacks who act like they represent the
entire race so they can get contributions or power or whatever
else it is they do behind closed doors.
When I write, I don't act
like I speak for all Black people. How do
these guys
(Kirk, Price) get away with this? No one or two people speak for any
entire race, That's like saying that one
Caucasian or Asian speaks for all of them.
It's easy for the media to play
it up... all Belo cares about is who they can
control for their pet projects.
Who said that
Kirk and Price speak for all Blacks? Absurd!
This is why I write the way I do.
What I see in Dallas is a small group of
people who control everything through
intimidation, lies, fear, and finding
a couple of people who
pretend they can guarantee our votes when their
influence has obviously waned.
It is time to revolt against this
nonsense. May 2007 is the City's chance to
Vote "NO!" on this kind of influence peddling and garbage.
Maybe we won't have all of
the money that the powers that be control, but
each person controls our own vote.
Anchia's committing political
suicide. If he's got Kirk and Price helping him,
I can't support him. |
|
Once again, The Dallas Managed News promotes racial division in this city by allowing Goffer to paint
Anchia's possible campaign as minority vs. White. Laura Miller
didn't cause racial division in this city. She has just been dealing with
the racial chaos left behind by Con Jerk/Ron Kirk and encouraged by the
DMN .
In Anch?,
many see the next Ron Kirk
(July
28, 2006
by GROMER JEFFERS JR. / The Dallas Morning News).
|
"He [Mr. Anch?] would do horrible in the African-American community
because of the immigration issue," said political analyst Rufus Shaw Jr.
"If he says he's for amnesty, he's going to lose half the
African-American community. When he compares it to the civil rights
issue, he'll lose the rest of it."
But Dallas County
Commissioner John Wiley Price said Mr. Anch? could win and get support
from black voters. He has consulted Mr. Anch? on his possible mayoral
bid.
"He's the new face of Dallas.
He's not only a good-looking face, but he's got brains and he builds
coalitions," Mr. Price said. "And just like Ron Kirk, he's the American
dream. Kirk got Hispanic votes, and Anch? can get black votes."
|
Boy, is that the kiss of death
for Anchia's campaign? Goffer did not do Anchia any favors with this front
page story. You have to assume that was his intent because Rufus Shaw is
like Goffer's puppet master, if not ghost writer.
Why are only Hispanic or Black candidates capable of being the "American dream"?
But, back to the Hicks/Perot arena and the "over-promised" and "under-delivered"
development at Victory. Ross, Jr. admitted early on it was not about
basketball to him -- it was a real estate deal. That may have been the
only true statement he has ever made in regard to the Victory project.
No matter how successful Victory may be eventually become (they claim at least
by 2018), it is never going to generate tax revenue that will benefit projects
needed by Joe Taxpayer. With the tax abatements Ron Kirk/Con Jerk and John
Ware got for them, that development is going to tax revenue neutral for most of
our lifetimes.
That's why the arena package negotiated by Con Jerk and John Ware will always be
a bad deal!
sb
| |
|
