It looks like the preliminary Swing purchase deal would indeed pay the city back up front for the majority of the renovation costs. That part is an awesome deal. I'm not sure how getting the money up front instead of in payments would work out financially for the city, but it seems like having the money to put in the bank and get interest on is better than getting yearly payments. The less cool parts are the greatly decreased rent, and some of the other requests, such as having exclusive control over the stadium, and losing money from the naming rights. The talk of lowering ticket prices could certainly be good for Davenport.
The city has to fight the attempt to have exclusive rights to the stadium. Maybe give them an IOC-type deal where the city won't let new baseball teams come in and use the stadium, but its our stadium, and the city should be able to use it if it wants. Hopefully our crack negotiators can get that part dropped, or maybe it was just a bargaining chip in the first place. I also wish that either the interested buyers or the city would be proactive in explaining how this could be a good deal for Davenport instead of letting rumors and guessing run rampant.
We'll see what the final deal ends up being, but it also sounds like Kevin isn't that interested in losing a ton of money on his investment.
Here's a quick fix for Kevin: Suck it up and pay your bills. The longer you wait, the more damage you've done to your already bad relationship with the city.
3 comments:
If I follwed it correctly-the Public Safety Committee just tabled the outdoor liquor license for Seventh Inning Stretch. Does that mean they can't serve beer outside?
From what I recall, they can continue selling under their old license, until the new license is rejected or approved, and then even then they could keep selling while it's appealed.
I think Gartner is asking pie-in-the sky to start with, expecting some kind of counter-offer. I hope so at least. And I hope our city leaders are smart enough to make a counter-offer if it comes to that.
I agree losing year-round control would suck. We shouldn't lose that. The city should also insist on keeping their half of the naming rights money. I think the current agreement requires that the city put their portion of the naming-rights money back into the mainanance of the stadium, anyway, but its still better than not getting any money out of it AND having to pay maintenance costs.
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