An arena in Y'town doomed to fail

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. That seems to be attitude of Youngstown City Council members toward the proposed convocation/community center -- the so-called arena project -- and woe be it those who advise caution or commonsense. It doesn't matter to the lawmakers that no private developer has stepped forward to say, "Building a sports arena in downtown Youngstown is a fantastic idea, and here's my $25 million." Instead, members of council have adopted a new strategy: If we can't persuade anyone outside government to partnership with the city and match the $25 million federal grant that's available, then we'll go it alone.
And what does going it alone entail? Building a 5,400-seat arena for about $30 million -- all taxpayer dollars. There's talk about seeking $4 million from the state to match the $25 million from the federal government, but that's a long shot. It is important to remember that the original proposal was for an 8,000- to 10,000-seat facility costing $50 million because that's what a marketing study showed was needed for the project to have any chance of financial success.
So why damn the torpedoes? Because members of city council have decided that an arena is what's needed to resurrect economically anemic Youngstown, and no one's going to tell them otherwise. (Here's a prediction: The building will become another boarded up structure within five years.)
But the voices in the wilderness, the whistlers in the wind, the battlers of windmills must not be dissuaded. Miracles do happen; elected officials do occasionally see the light.
Minor league
Why not support a sports arena in which minor league ice hockey, minor league football and other forms of entertainment will be offered? Because the test that Mayor George M. McKelvey established pertaining to the feasibility of the project still applies. McKelvey put it succinctly when he said: If a private developer does not come to the table with his checkbook to match the federal grant, it would be reasonable to conclude that the financial viability of the project is suspect. Indeed, in failing to find a developer to invest $25 million, the city received an unequivocal message from the bank that was reviewing the developer's loan application: There isn't a large enough revenue stream to guarantee repayment of the loan.
The financial analysis of the $50 million project shows a revenue deficit in the first year, which is not surprising. It is a well-established fact that sports arenas are money losers. That's why governments, and not the private sector, build them and why such things as sin taxes are necessary.
So even though city council is determined to spend the $25 million federal grant on a downsized project -- there would not be any debt to service -- the annual operation and maintenance costs will have to be covered by city government. And given the city's fiscal difficulties, the question that must be answered is the one McKelvey has asked many times: Where will the money come from to cover any shortfall?
Now hear this
Before members of council dismiss the advice to consider the ramifications of spending the kind of money the city will never see again -- free money the mayor and council were not responsible for securing -- they would do well to read the following:
"Looking at the city's down-at-the-heels publicly owned convention facility, lots of folks became persuaded that a brand-new, glitzy meeting place would be the ideal cleanup hitter in Greater Cleveland's future lineup. So what if every city in the country of more than 300,000 has one as well? This one would be ours.
"And it would bring conventioneers and tourists once more to a bustling downtown where Halle's, the May Co. and the Sterling Linder Christmas tree of dimming memory once held sway.
"But it became apparent even to the most somnambulant dreamers that the cost -- a half-billion dollars, after every special-interest group got its piece of the action -- was more than this municipal franchise would bear.
"So, the convention center dog-and-pony show that hogged the main civil stage all summer quietly folded. And now, as autumn's gloom is about to settle on the city, another iteration of that dream is arriving for another fantasy season."
That was written by Jim Strang, associate editor of The Plain Dealer's editorial pages, in a column published Sept. 24.
A naysayer? An enemy of progress? Of course not.
A voice of reason? Definitely.
And that's what Youngstown needs: loud voices of reason.