VICTOR JOECKS: Henderson’s minor-league hockey arena is a major league rip-off
Even a pandemic gutting city tax revenues won’t stop Henderson from giving $42 million to a minor league hockey arena. That’d be comical if it wasn’t so pathetic.
On Tuesday, the Henderson City Council will vote on an agreement that Mayor Debra March first announced in February. Henderson will pay half the cost for a new hockey arena at which the Vegas Golden Knights’ minor league team will play. The new building will replace the Henderson Pavilion in the affluent Green Valley Ranch area.
From the beginning, nearby neighbors have fiercely opposed this plan. March was eager to have Golden Knights personnel and the team mascot at her State of the City speech. She didn’t have the guts to show up to packed community meetings where residents voiced their displeasure. They were concerned primarily about traffic, parking and financing.
Then the coronavirus lockdown happened. City Council members didn’t want to let this crisis go to waste. They seized the chance to push the project forward without allowing the opposition to show up in person. Nothing says leadership like ignoring constituents to subsidize minor league hockey. What heroes.
Now that the contract is available, it’s obvious why the council wants as little attention paid to this as possible.
See if you can figure out who’s getting the better end of the deal here. Henderson is providing the land. Henderson and the Golden Knights will each pay half the construction costs. The Golden Knights will pay $150,000 a year in rent, increasing by 2 percent a year. Not only that, the rent money must go toward improving the arena. Fair market value for the arena would be $3.3 million, according to the city.
Henderson will be the landlord, but the Golden Knights will control the arena. The Golden Knights will keep the revenue generated by ticketing, parking, concessions, broadcasting rights and advertising. They’ll keep all the money from naming the arena and don’t even have to include Henderson in the name.
In contrast, the city will get to use the arena 37 days a year for events such the State of the City address, large city staff meetings and high school graduations.
This isn’t a partnership. It’s a con job — especially when the city projects its revenue will fall by more than $50 million through fiscal year 2021 as a result of the coronavirus shutdown.
You could tell city officials were feeling the heat when they had to resort to putting out a biased survey claiming to show the arena had widespread public support. On Wednesday, the city asserted the project would produce a 107 percent return on investment in the first year. That estimate is based primarily on the book value of the facility. But no one would pay full price for an $84 million facility that is leased out for 20 years at less than 5 percent of market value. No one, it seems, but a majority of the Henderson City Council who are spending taxpayer dollars, not their own.
The Henderson minor- league hockey facility is a major-league rip-off.
Victor Joecks’ column appears in the Opinion section each Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Contact him at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on Twitter.