Last week, I had a letter in the News & Record published regarding the coliseum.
Two items. I am not opposed the the ACC Tourneyment; I just don't think the tax payers should foot the bill. (See below). Second, they edited out $20 Million Dollars. The coliseum is asking for $36 Million this year and Matt Brown is ready to propose an ADDITIONAL $20 million next year (according to the News & Record article.
As for the $130 Million the ACC Tourneyment brings into the market, I really have serious concerns about that number. If you do the math, the number of hotel rooms booked (and etc.), that runs into about $500 a person spending per year (about right). Only problems is very little of that is money spend on LOCAL businesses - it's leaving town as fast as the Thursday play in games.
At best we might see $6.5 Million in tax revenue (assuming all persons coming to the games will stay in hotel/motels in the city limits and subject to the coliseum reveue tax. Oh, heck, throw in another 10% for other taxes as well.
So over the next 10 years the ACC Tourneyment will return roughly $20 Million in tax revenue; for that we plan to spend $56 Million in bonds and will have spent upwards of $10 Million operating losses and $140 Million in debt service to earlier coliseum bonds.
Government spending in action.
Just think, if we make the coliseum private - we would have $5 Million* in annual tax revenue, $0 in operate losses, $0 on Bond Service. * - That revenue would be from hotel/motel tax that could be used in other areas to improve the city.
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