Category: Washington Politics (Page 23 of 27)

Don’t look too closely at initiative election results in Seattle. The light will blind you.

This is going to sound a lot like the post below, but I don’t feel just like updating an old post. Back in November Dan at the Seattlest wrote “Why Major League Soccer Is Never Coming To Seattle,” which pretty much tries to make the same point that Goldy made back in April.

I-91 was incredibly popular so don’t even try to ask Seattle folks for any more money for sports stadiums. Case closed. Go away. We mean it. Seriously.

Here is my response to Goldy, in which I point out two things:

1) No one fought I-91, so its not a very fair representation of how a contested election, with a less easy to hate enemy, would end up.

2) King County residents voted in high numbers for the Seahawks Stadium, basically pushing the initiative over the line.

And, then my post below. Soccer stadiums are a lot cheaper than multi-purpose basketball stadiums (public contribution ~$40 million compared to $300 million). And, the legislature passed public support legislation for two sports facilities (including a new hockey arena in King County) and no one raised a fuss.

If the MLS doesn’t succeed in King County, it won’t be because the political environment isn’t supportive.

I recently bitched too early over at Washblog about losing the USL-1 Sounders to an MLS expansion team in a couple of years. Now I think its a pretty good idea, but there have been some concerns about whether its possible to build a new soccer specific stadium in Washington, or whether given the crash and burn effort of the Sonics to get a new arena is poisoning the well for public financing of sports arenas.

Here:

“Renton is a very interesting site because of the demographics and the growth that I have seen around that area and the land that is available,” James Keston said. “And based on what has happened with the Sonics, they’ve already gone through the first stages of this: the making sure that the community and the city at least have an interest in a potential stadium there.”

The Sonics issue is their failure to gain public money for a new home even with the threat of relocation.

And, more directly, here:

The only real hangup there is a stadium. The Sonics are having major problems trying to get something built and I doubt after footing the bill for both Safeco and Qwest that the taxpayers there will go for something new for the Sonics, much less an MLS team. No stadium=no team as far as MLS is concerned.

Instead of looking at the Sonics for the future of the MLS in Seattle, we should pay closer attention to the efforts of hockey teams, horse people and community theaters. While the efforts of the Sonics to gain public funding for a new stadium went down in flames, a hockey arena in Kent, a horse dome in Lewis County and two community theaters are going to be built with public money allocated in the last legislative session.

Also, while the Sonics arena would have cost King County taxpayers about $300 million average public contribution to each of these smaller projects was much less. The new Amiga Center at Kent will cost the state just more that $30 million of the total $67 million cost.

And, the MLS stadiums being built around the country today are right in line with the projects the state funded this year. Even if you look at the most expensive stadium in Salt Lake, $150 million for the entire project is not out of line. I could see someone making and argument for a state contribution of $30+ million to an $80+ million park along the lines of Pizza Hut Park in Houston near Dallas (thanks Blue Lightning). Heck, the stadium in Toronto only cost $62 million.