Shit your pants after reading this table.
I’m no economist, but it seems doubling the subsidy in one year is probably not a good thing.
Shit your pants after reading this table.
I’m no economist, but it seems doubling the subsidy in one year is probably not a good thing.
It looks good. They need a cooking show on cable. It’s good book cooking.
$100,000 for events task force study!!!!!
I saw that too, PG.
A study that was nothing more than groupthink on display. We pay huge $$$ to folks who study this shit for a living and we ignore their findings.
Terri Ellis Schmidt knew that her facility was a complete clusterfuck and the only way to save it was to dump another $100 million or so into it. Which gets us next to nothing when it comes to overall payback. 20 years down the road they’ll ask for another $100 million, no effin’ thanks.
We can have a viable, regional convention business with Sioux Falls as an actual destination, but not with these clowns who currently run the CC.
I like how they have trouble paying themselves.
“Scott Kavanaugh, general manager of Global Spectrum in Sioux Falls, admitted that the firm had a cash-flow problem,”
Yah think?
Above 2007 it says “6-month period” so if that suggests what I think it does, you can’t compare 2007 to 2008 or 2009 assuming they are for full 12 month periods.
Not that we aren’t throwing a huge pile of money at the place every year… but it may not be quite as bad as you make it appear. Of course I didn’t read the audit report so I could be dead wrong here.
Why are we subsidizing the place? I don’t get it. This should be a money maker for the city.
Because Sioux Falls is not the entertainment or convention mecca like many would have you believe.
This is the same reason a new Events Center will need to be subsidized year after year – because people have a desire to build pet projects that the city cannot yet support. The whole mentality here is “if you build it they will come” yet time after time we see our venues sitting empty and requiring city dollars to keep them afloat.
“if you build it they will” cum -Costner
True, but they have to pay to play when they frequent ‘taxpayer hookers’.
We have a growing population, an increasing local tourism business, one of the lowest tax burdens in the Nation, low unemployment, low foreclosure rates, low crime rates and we also have a large chunk of our population who has discretionary income to spend. Look at the Mall, look at how the semi-pro teams are doing. Look at where the Iowa’s Casino is going. Look at any number of other indicators.
If we went by the same standard as the Arena built during the Recession of 1961, we’d be pitching a 16K seat venue that could hold 10% of our population. Like the Arena, we will go several years before we fill it consistently and yes we will go several years of subsidizing it. But also like the Arena, the Fargodome & Tyson, we will be able to pay the thing off in give or take a decade and enjoy some nice payback for the remaining 40 or so years of it’s lifespan.
We built it before and they came, why are so many insistant that can’t happen again?
There’s no such thing as a money-making convention center. The only real justification is whether or not the center brings in more addition tax dollars from visitors than what it costs (to build and to subsidize). Convention centers almost never make sense economically, but politicians love to build them so they can point and say “Look! Progress!”.
DDC- I agree, it would be hard for them to make money. But if it is needed, wouldn’t it at least break even? Is that too much to ask?
In order to break even they’d have to actually charge people appropriately for using the Center. If they did that they’d lose a lot of conventions to other facilities and other cities and lose even more money. There’s just too many other cities that have these stupid convention centers that they need to fill up and are willing to subsidize the things to keep them filled up.