Detroit approves $650 million hockey arena despite being bankrupt...

$650M hockey arena district moves forward.

The public, through an economic development fund, will pay $283 million toward the project, and $367 million will come from private funding sources — a 44-56 percent split. But officials emphasized there will be no new taxes, and the money won’t come out of the city’s battered coffers.

Excuse me? Hundreds of millions of dollars? What the...

Of-course the money wont come from the city's "coffers", they're empty...

The money is going to come from funds that are GOING to be collected. Yah sure, from whom? The same entities (people and businesses) which are already too broke to pay for basic services?

Hey, why not keep spending money when you have none. If the federal government can do it, why not the the cities and states???

"Will benefit the city", YEAH RIGHT. It will benefit a few fat cats.

Originally referring to religion, the term "opiate of the masses" has since been used to describe sports. Keep the people preoccupied with their baseball, football, basketball, golf etc. as the scum bags in government implode the nation and install the police state.

And once its built (if it ever is built), how long before it too is crumbling and in decay?

The ruins of Detroit.

United Artists theater, Detroit:

reply to post by gladtobehere


*face palm* :shk:


I bet they run out of money before it's completed

The proposed 45-block area, described as an “entertainment district,” also will include retail, office and residential space, a hotel and parking buildings.

Then they will have an unfinished building complex to show for the tax payers hard earned money.
Evidently the city officials have a 'money management' problem and I wonder how much of that will end up in their pockets?

Why anyone still lives there is insane.

Move anywhere, seriously....anywhere. Get a couple hundred bucks, grab what you can and get out.

On the subject of approving a new Arena, sounds like that should help fix the books. Good thinking.

That theater looks perfect for a rave.

I am a huge hockey fan, the detroit red wings have been one of the best franchises in the nhl for the past 20 years,

youd think the owners would have made enough money to pay for this new arena, even in canada where hockey is

a religion people mostly dont want there taxes going towards build new facilities.

I find it dificult to understand why the people of detroit would accept forking the bill.

What good is a new sports arena when you'll be mugged, stripped and likely beaten before you get from your car to the ticket gate? Probably by 3 entirely different criminals!

Talk about incredibly warped priorities and corruption that knows NO end. I'll bet if someone took a hard look at each politician involved here, their personal finances and that of their immediate family? You'll see without going further, just why a sports stadium in the American version of Beirut is SO important.

I weep for the people in that once great city. A good number of people are still stuck there and with home values dropping into the mere thousands ...and STILL impossible to sell? Well, they can make the best or they can pick a highway overpass to sleep under in another place. That's one hell of a choice while 'Rome burns'.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I've given up on caring about what happens in America. This is why, when i go anywhere in America i am surrounded by stupidity or ignorance i can't figure it out. People who are doing whats cool instead of whats right people blind to everything i cant even describe it.

I just dont even know anymore.

I hope some nice country or corporation comes along and adopts Detroit.

Oooo like a biotechnology company! Or a robotics company! That would be awesome.


Seriously. Sell what's in the museum, give it all to the taxpayers, buy out any land or property they own. Get everyone you can out of town and then just bomb the # out of it. Level the whole damn thing.

We annex the land, Sell it piece by piece to Corporations and Foreign Interests and leave it a free state entirely in their control.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

Talk about incredibly warped priorities and corruption that knows NO end. I'll bet if someone took a hard look at each politician involved here, their personal finances and that of their immediate family? You'll see without going further, just why a sports stadium in the American version of Beirut is SO important.

Daniel Gilbert seems to be the one gobbling up property.

www.forbes.com...


Peace

See.

Detroit is the perfect opportunity to remake an american city in Corporate America's image. None of that regulation and order nonsense, no rule of law just the law of profits.

Cheap building space at rock bottom prices + development opportunities = Billions.

Why dont NHL players pay for it?

They have the money for it.

reply to post by gladtobehere


You do realize this is not "news" as the article is from the middle of June?

Also, the arena is to be built in an area near...the relatively new Detroit Tigers stadium...and the relatively new Detroit Lions stadium....and other restaurants and businesses in this renovated area?

ETA
If Detroit it to succeed, businesses and people need to move back to the city.
There needs to be entrepreneurs and others with vision willing to take a chance on Detroit......tax revenues need to come from somewhere....many citizens cannot afford more taxes.

Classic fiddling while Rome burned.

reply to post by DontTreadOnMe


I would LOVE for Detroit to come back from the blight that chokes it.

But..............

Mike Ilitch, whose family is worth $2.7 billion dollars.

Where, oh where have we heard this argument before? What city has heard the false promise that stadium construction on the public dime would be a postindustrial life raft? There are actually many, but none have heard it more and paid the cost quite like Detroit. A new Red Wings arena would be the city’s third publicly funded major sports stadium, joining the Tigers’ Comerica Stadium and the Lions’ Ford Field. Each of these was billed as a “remedy” to save the city. Each of these has obviously failed. Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us. Try to fool us three times? Go to hell.

I spoke with Marvin Surkin, co-author of the classic book Detroit: I Do Mind Dying. He said, “These are more than just remedies that didn’t work. They are part of the problem because stadiums don’t address the central issues of falling population, falling tax base, declining wages, unemployment and the underfunding of schools.”

On Vultures and Red Wings: Billionaire Gets New Sports Arena in Bankrupt Detroit

That coin flip has been tried before.........

When did the wheels come off Detroit? 70's?

Originally posted by onequestion
That theater looks perfect for a rave.

it indeed looks like a psychedelic cave
in washed out day-glo colors...

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
What good is a new sports arena when you'll be mugged, stripped and likely beaten before you get from your car to the ticket gate? Probably by 3 entirely different criminals!

Talk about incredibly warped priorities and corruption that knows NO end. I'll bet if someone took a hard look at each politician involved here, their personal finances and that of their immediate family? You'll see without going further, just why a sports stadium in the American version of Beirut is SO important.

I weep for the people in that once great city. A good number of people are still stuck there and with home values dropping into the mere thousands ...and STILL impossible to sell? Well, they can make the best or they can pick a highway overpass to sleep under in another place. That's one hell of a choice while 'Rome burns'.

The public, through an economic development fund, will pay $283 million toward the project, and $367 million will come from private funding sources — a 44-56 percent split. But officials emphasized there will be no new taxes, and the money won’t come out of the city’s battered coffers.

methinks they're finally down to eating the seed crops

keywords are "economic development fund"
there's no money...
yet here's suddenly $283 million all of a sudden?
ROFL methinks they're finally down looting CAFR!
and the plot thickens [see below!]

Originally posted by Thorneblood
See.

Detroit is the perfect opportunity to remake an american city in Corporate America's image. None of that regulation and order nonsense, no rule of law just the law of profits.

Cheap building space at rock bottom prices + development opportunities = Billions.

you do know you're describing the gentrification of an entire city?

i suspect a mix of sarcasm, laced with cynicism
as I know you to not make common cause with the "Sane".
that said
talk about disaster capitalism !
this is beyond being vultures
cities are only as alive as the people in them, these represent the very lifeblood of a city
these...
things are going to suck out every last drop of blood from detroit
and leave a hole in the ground, a deadzone.
in the middle of what is rapidly becoming a hollow state

detroit today, america tomorrow?

reply to post by Taggart


Detroit peaked in the 50s...and had been on a downward spiral since.

Things like the first shopping mall opening in the north and eastern suburbs killing off downtown shopping....and the auto industry opening plants outside of Michigan.... and people with new-found "wealth" moving to adjacent suburbs all contributed to the end of Detroit.

Originally posted by DontTreadOnMe
reply to post by gladtobehere

 

You do realize this is not "news" as the article is from the middle of June?

Also, the arena is to be built in an area near...the relatively new Detroit Tigers stadium...and the relatively new Detroit Lions stadium....and other restaurants and businesses in this renovated area?

ETA
If Detroit it to succeed, businesses and people need to move back to the city.
There needs to be entrepreneurs and others with vision willing to take a chance on Detroit......tax revenues need to come from somewhere....many citizens cannot afford more taxes.

edit on Sun Aug 4 2013 by DontTreadOnMe because: (no reason given)

in order for the old "debt" paradigm to work, people must have jobs and disposable income, neither of which will be coming to any-town usa anytime soon if ever again. vision and entrepreneurs wont work any longer since the debt fleecing is almost complete.

this is nothing more than buy, buy, buy and don't worry about tomorrow type of thinking and it's bunk.

reply to post by LittleBlackEagle

While I agree with the need for jobs and disposable income and the small chance that will happen anytime soon in many urban areas....something must be done to generate tax revenue to these cities.

Right now, huge areas of Detroit are prairies.
Coyotes, pheasants, hawks, skunks, woodchucks and other non-urban wildlife are taking over.
For the first time in decades and decades, beaver are again making a foothold in Detroit.

I believe a man recently got permission to re-forest a section of Detroit and urban farms are taking hold.

The old ways won't work anymore.
IMHO.

you forgot about the racist part

Black people generally don't like hockey so the white people have had to wait for a new arena while football, baseball and basketball all have new places.

Oh wait the Palace is close to 20 so it's pretty much shot too then.

got to be a racist slant there somewhere.

All the empty property they could build a NASCAR track

There ya go