A tale of two cities

A few weeks ago, I analyzed the numbers from a Mercury News article Running 49ers stadium a costly pitfall. In my post A Costly Pitfall, I provided one crucial number that was missing from the initial article — the PER CAPITA cost of the subsidy.

Using just the numbers provided by the Mercury News, Santa Clara's subsidy of $180 million (the Mercury News did not include land value or the parking garage in their total), the PER RESIDENT subsidy of $1,651 was more than THREE TIMES that of the next closest project.

But the story doesn't end there.

Because I relied on the numbers in the Mercury News article, I calculated that the per resident cost of the new stadium for the Arizona Cardinals was $210 per resident.

That number is not exactly right for a few reasons.

First, the stadium is actually located in a suburb of Phoenix — Glendale, Arizona. The population of Glendale is approximately 258,677.

Second, the Mercury News article indicated that the public subsidy for this $455.7 million project was $310 million, but they didn't really break down either of these numbers.

The $455.7 million includes ALL costs related to the construction — including both land acquisition and site improvements. If these costs were added to the current San Francisco 49ers proposal, the total would be just shy of $1 BILLION [about $981 million to be more exact.]

Moreover, the city of Glendale's share of the $310 million subsidy was $9.9 million.

Yes, you read that right. Glendale spent $9.9 million on the project, for a per resident subsidy of about $38.

So where did they get the remaining $300.4 million of public money?

The rest of the subsidy came from the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority [ASTA], a municipal organization created by the Arizona State Legislature to promote sports and tourism in Maricopa County, the county in which Phoenix and its suburbs are located. The funds for ASTA contribution came from a voter-approved county-wide tax on hotels and rental cars.

[To be clear, I'm not in favor of new taxes, especially to subsidize facilities for privately-held corporations, but the current claim that Santa Clara can provide $180 million in cash with no new taxes and no impact to the general fund or utility ratepayers is wrong. The money has to come from somewhere, and it WILL have an impact either directly or indirectly.]

Sadly, however, the unfavorable comparisons don't end with $38 vs $2,600.

You see, the stadium in Glendale was built with a special field that rolls out so that the stadium can be used for multiple purposes. It also has a retractable roof, again making it suitable for a variety of uses.

And it is.

From August 4, 2006 through January 8, 2007, it hosted events on 110 of the 157 days — about 70% utilization as compared to less than 10% using the most optimistic numbers in the current San Francisco 49ers proposal.

Maybe these numbers will help Santa Clara realize that it's time to do a bit of comparison shopping — and if we still decide to buy, maybe we can get a few friends, like Santa Clara County, to chip in on this purchase.

After all, if the claimed benefits are regional, then the costs should be shared by the region. Glendale didn't shoulder the cost for all of Maricopa County, and the City of Santa Clara cannot and should not assume the entire public expense and risk for this stadium.