Venue News: Sacramento Releases Stadium Financing Term Sheet; Rams Reject CVC’s Renovation Plan

Sacramento officials released new details on the proposed $391 million downtown arena Thursday, including a VIP parking garage and special $1 ticket surcharge. The city produced the all-important “term sheet” spelling out the financing structure agreed to by city officials, the Sacramento Kings, arena operator Anschutz Entertainment Group, and the ICON/Taylor development team. The document was released three days after the parties announced a historic handshake deal to keep the Kings in town. With the release of the document, Mayor Kevin Johnson said the city met the NBA’s March 1 deadline for crafting a deal. While nonbinding, the term sheet must be approved by the City Council on Tuesday for the project to go forward. According to city officials, the parties would need to commit by April 3 to spending a combined $13 million on engineering, environmental, and other costs. Of the $13 million, the city would put in half, taking dollars from its parking fund and money earmarked for redevelopment, while AEG and the Kings would put in the rest. These dollars are included in the total $391 million budget…

…The CVC, which manages the Edward Jones Dome, announced that the Rams had rejected the CVC plan to make the Dome “first tier” in 15 categories detailed in the lease for the building. If the Rams and CVC can’t strike a deal, the team could walk away from the lease and leave St. Louis as early as 2015. The team has two months to present its vision for the Dome, facing a May 1 deadline to make a counteroffer after turning down a $124 million plan from the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission. The CVC will have until June 1 to consider the Rams’ plan. If the CVC rejects it, the two sides would negotiate in meetings closed to the public, according to the lease. If no deal is reached by June 15, the matter would go into arbitration. If the CVC rejects a renovation plan endorsed by arbitrators, the team would be free to move out of the Dome or continue there on a year-to-year basis. The CVC had proposed adding new windows, club seats, a video scoreboard, and a three-story structure on Baer Plaza that would serve as an entrance for fans in club seats and suites, and wanted the Rams to cover $64 million of the cost…

…A bill for a new Minnesota Vikings stadium might include language related to Minneapolis fixing up the Target Center, a key lawmaker said Friday. That would be a reversal of the plan outlined Thursday in which officials said renovations to the downtown Minneapolis arena would be addressed separately from the bill for the new football stadium. Instead, it would be handled in a companion bill. Officials also said Friday that they do not expect to introduce a bill Monday calling for construction of a $975 million stadium just east of the Metrodome, as suggested earlier. They said more time is needed to craft the legislation. How to handle a $135 million Target Center renovation could play a significant role in the stadium debate. Including it in the legislation has been opposed by some lawmakers who don’t want to see the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul put at a competitive disadvantage. But taking the Target Center out of the bill raised concerns that the renovation would have a harder time passing were it voted on separately. And finding a way to include the work is seen as critical to securing Minneapolis City Council votes for the stadium plan…

…Since late 2009, two San Diego County supervisors have been quietly meeting with San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders about using county tax dollars to build a new Chargers stadium in downtown San Diego’s East Village. Supervisors Ron Roberts and Dianne Jacob, in interviews last month, said they’ve made no financial commitments to Sanders during eight private meetings they’ve held on the stadium topic since November 2009. Sanders and Chargers officials in recent months have increasingly promoted the new stadium, expected to cost upward of $1 billion, and the professional football team as regional assets. They note that a majority of Chargers season-ticket holders live outside the city of San Diego, and that a new, retractable-roof stadium could attract “mega events” such as Super Bowls, college basketball tournaments, and political conventions, generating jobs and tourism dollars across the county.

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