The sales tax for the downtown arena continues to exceed projections, bringing in more than $6.3 million last month — $375,000 more than projected. That puts the total collected halfway through the 1 percent, 30-month sales tax at nearly $85.5 million — $1.5 million ahead of schedule toward the goal of $184.5 million. Regrettably, the pace of collections is not so great that people are still talking about ending the tax early, and there no doubt are plenty of unanticipated costs ahead. But seeing the project dollars ahead is far preferable to the alternative.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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16 Comments
Are they planning on a 10 story 20,000 car parking garage? And 6 lanes to get in and out of the area?
Hmmm… You wont see me going to the arena even if Depeche Mode came..
Erik raises a point. I wonder what other cost over-runs they will have. It seems that they are paying an awful lot for the most derelict properties they have taken; what happens if the viable properties follow suit in their legal wrangling?
White elephant. ‘Twas always so. That tax revenues are running ahead of projections doesn’t change that.
You can force me to help pay for the thing but you cannot force me to ever spend any money attending events there.
I like the idea some have had of making this thing double as a homeless shelter when it is idle.
Rhonda,How about the alternative of us not being stuck with this regressive tax at all?
Any bets that this tax will NEVER go away?
The fact that tax collections are “ahead of schedule” only means, to me, that people are still buying taxable goods and services in Sedgwick County, not that there is any more support for the Albino Pachyderm. This also reflects increases in prices for the goods and services subject to the Retailers’ Sales Tax. If it is evidence of anything, it supports the position that due to recent higher gasoline prices, people haven’t found it to be to their economic advantage to make purchases outside of Sedgwick County.
Vaughn – absolutely true!
Could it be — that the county isn’t willing to pay the Episcopal Social Services group a fair amount to relocate near downtown because they really don’t want all those poor, tatterred people walking around their bright shiny idea of a new downtown.
I remember the arena cheerleaders vociforously claiming on the WE Blog that a storm sewer line would NOT be needed to transport rainstorm water from the arena to the Arkansas River. They used a cake pan and three rocks to “prove” this.
So the giant pre-cast steel reinforced 5 foot X 8 foot box culvert that is being mysteriously constructed completely across downtown Wichita must be a phantom sewer line. It’s big enough to drive a Mercedes Benz through it. But you can bet the cost is a lot more, in the millions of dollars.
I know some will argue the storm sewer is needed to drain the downtown and Old Town areas anyway. But you can bet it wouldn’t have been built if the arena was sited near the Arkansas River where it belongs or not have been built at all.
And not being a member of the “arena cheerleaders” group, I have no idea how much this storm sewer is costing nor who is paying for it. Do you?
Amazing that Wichita county commissioners, city councilmen and assorted hired guns and politicians can “OFFER” $250,000,000 of the taxpayers hard earned money for the albatross, white elephant downtown arena for no known purpose. Any common sense there?
But they can’t solve the situations that need support here in Wichita and Sedgwick County. Projects such as:
** Old Wichita Cowtown,
** Riverwalk,
** Exploration Place,
** Indian Center,
** Expand the Airport w/o bonds,
** Expand the jail w/o bonds,
** Airplane tech school w/o bonds,
** Cleanup Arkansas River,
** Adequately provide for future water supply for Wichita,
** Use boathouse for the public,
** Provide downtown improvements in some of our suburban communities,
** Widen thoroughfares and boulevards out in the county,
** Do something neat with 21st Street,
** Turn downtown Wichita’s priceless urban district into a small slice of New York City with mom and pop type businesses and offices for entrepreneurs in the 1930’s downtown buildings.
** Support and modernize Lawrence-Dumont Stadium and Wichita baseball.
** Build modern bowling center complex by the Arkansas River to draw tourists to Wichita from all over the world.
AND LET ORDINARY WICHITANS GET INVOLVED IN BRAINSTORMING WHAT IS NEEDED TO MAKE WICHITA GREAT — NOT JUST THE SILK STOCKING “VISIONEERING GROUP” THAT RECEIVES ITS MARCHING ORDERS DIRECTLY FROM GOD.
JWink-
Forget your bowling alley idea being built by the City and County! That’s a free enterprise business, a group should buy their property somewhere and develop it.
That’s not public use.
County bonds for the jail expansion are the price of bad things happening.
Its not commerce that improves the city for tourism.
The airport update is a decade away. Many things have to happen proving the need for that update. Bonds paying for it or not.
Airplane tech, I don’t know. The plane groups get assistance. They need a training school for future workers.
I’m for searching out the real feasibility, bullet trains across Kansas. We build planes here and the price of flying isn’t getting cheaper.
We do need a faster way getting in and out of town, than cars.
The arena is necessary and really there is no need to discuss the cost of it anymore. That project is locked.
Sports teams in the downtown arena will be there and nowhere near the Coliseum.
Park City can buy the Coliseum but it has to be fixed. $50 Million and more. Tell Dee to go ahead when the downtown arena is finished, will she have the job?
County will take that check and spend it on a few more things you mention. But that’s not going to happen.
Strange that in all of Wichita, I can’t find real citizens with real names, unaffiliatated with the project, who will take credit for using $250,000,000 (1/4 billion dollars) of the taxpayers’ money to build the white elephant albatross downtown arena.
As everyone knows, the “Friends of Ice Hockey” wanted this arena for “their sport.” Fortunately the “Friends of Miniature Trains” and “Friends of Antique 18 Wheelers” and “Friends of Old White Elephants” didn’t ask the County Commissioners for a “venue” for their hobbies also.
Also probably more importantly, a “phantom group” of architects and contruction industry people wanted to create a temporary boomlet in business at the expense of the little people of Wichita.
When I first arrived in Wichita, I wondered aloud why Maple/Lewis didn’t transition smoothly into Waterman since there was a lot of open ground in that vicinity. Somehow this idea was leveraged into the Water Walk project. However, I do support Water Walk as an effort to do something worthwhile in that area east of the Arkansas River.
I also talked to several people about trying to get some private investor group to build a more modest arena near Lawrence-Dumont Stadium for various sports by high schools and modest private sports teams. Unfortunately this resulted in the ill-designed ICE SPORTS building that can’t quite serve any mission properly. That site was key for a modest indoor arena that would hold 10,000 fans or a little more than Lawrence-Dumont Stadium for basketball, ice shows, etc.
Again a few “politicos” got hold of the idea, designed the project in a garage, and used taxpayers money to build the monstrosity.
In the case of the proposed downtown white elephant arena, again some politicos, hired guns from out of town, five high paid county commissioners who have nothing better to do, and some of their county employees, some architects and contractors, have pushed this monstrosity along again without giving the public any meaningful say in the alternatives of what could have been done.
The most meaningful decision the public was allowed to make was to choose the color of the seating material.
It was the old salesman’s technique: do you want to buy this crap today or tomorrow? Not do you even want to buy it at all?
Unfortunately to do any of the other projects to improve downtown, or the suburban communities, or significant Arkansas River improvements, or renovate Old Cowtown, or do River Walk project correctly (with the promised “river walk,” new downtown library building, new “barrack-type facility” for the homeless, improvements to Lawrence-Dumont Stadium to save Wichita baseball, will require another increase in the sales tax pushing it to the horrendous 10 cents on the dollar level.
In the 1960’s, Kansas City, Missouri passed a one-cent earnings tax applicable to anyone who lived or worked in K.C. This tax is what caused K.C. residents to “vote with their feet” by moving to Johnson County and to Lee’s Summit, Blue Springs, Liberty, etc. on the Missouri side. This tax redistributed the population there for some thirtyyears.
Here in Sedgwick County, short-sided big-spender politicians are playing into the hands of the “promoters at any cost, for no apparent use” to enrich a few pockets at the expense of the many.
Its the old socialistic idea “From each according to your ability, to each according to your need regardless of the value of your contribution.”
So many good things could have been done in Wichita but the super expensive “albatross” downtown arena will drain the financial ability away from doing these things.
Also the nature of the potential of large groups of arena attendees entering and exiting the downtown area at the same traffic clogging time is causing or has caused and will continue to cause many great downtown businesses to move out of the downtown area. I can see a vast emptiness growing in just the ten years I have been working in the downtown area.
In Kansas City, Kansas, back in the early 1960’s, the classic case of downtown redevelopment took place. KCK’s then very healthy downtown “main street was closed for six months or so while “urban renewal” installed a concrete serpentine main street looking much like a miniature golf layout. That effort with the good intentions of government destroyed the old and great downtown Kansas City, Kansas business district for ever more. Of course the people responsible for KCK’s demise left soon after for new venues to “help.”
SO, BOTTOMLINE, THIS ARENA MESS NEEDS TO BE REVOTED BY SEDGWICK COUNTY VOTERS. Strange that the arena was voted down several times by the voters but when they finally barely voted for it in a virtual tie, the pro-arena phantoms won’t let go.
How many times was the Dynaplex etc voted down before they finally got a vote to pass? If it could be voted again and again before why not another vote now? Put it on the ballot 4 weeks from now – lets see what happens.
In City Council they have a ’second reading’ to finalize. Why not here?
As for WaterWalk/RiverWalk/whatever: The City should handle riverfront improvements, shade trees, walking/biking paths, river access, benches, picnic tables, etc. Free enterprise capitalism should build for-profit stores etc. If a developer wants to build a “Waterfront” downtown like one did out on Webb Road he should be free to do so.
Hey Wink,”Also the nature of the potential of large groups of arena attendees entering and exiting the downtown area at the same traffic clogging time is causing or has caused and will continue to cause many great downtown businesses to move out of the downtown area.”If the businesses all leave, won’t that simply vacate more territory for future development? Gee, we could probably leverage that into an ever-expanding black hole of developed emptiness!
Jed: As you said, downtown Wichita is becoming an “ever-expanding black hole of developed emptiness.” Or compare downtown Wichita’s central business district (CBD) to the former planet Pluto which is being downgraded to a “dwarf planet.” So we now have a dwarf CBD thanks to the impending white elephant downtown arena.
Arena architects/engineers heard the arena will be a major drain on the taxpayers so they reacted by constructing a giant 5 foot by 8 foot reinforced concrete storm water box culvert from the arena site across town about a mile to the Arkansas River … at some humongous cost. Its so big, you could drive a Mercedes-Benz through it.
Arena cheerleaders previously said an expensive drainage structure would NOT be needed and “proved” it by using “a tin pan and three rocks.”
Sorry, you were wrong again boys! But remember that tin pan and three rocks might cost the Sedgwick County taxpayers $250,000,000.00 for an unneeded white elephant arena.
Is there a more cowardly tax than an arena tax? Sadly, Kansas City is not the first to raise money for a public project by taxing people who don’t live there and can’t vote against it. I rented a car at KCI last month for a trip to Manhattan and paid the eight-dollar arena tax. It’s pretty unlikely that I will ever set foot in KC’s new arena, though I’m sure it will be nice.
Why not make the sales tax bigger? Why not put a tax on Royals, Chiefs, UMKC and other local sports teams? I’d bet their fans are more likely to benefit from the new arena than some guy from Wisconsin who flies to KC once every couple of years and never goes downtown.
It’s not just KC — Chicago did the same thing a few years ago for its convention center, and so have other cities. Still, it seems pretty lame for any city to tax non-residents to pay for a local project.