Quote:
Originally Posted by Tech House
A large public facility like this needs to be kept out of neighborhoods, which is one of many reasons I oppose the Statesman location.
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I agree. I oppose it being built there for three reasons.
1. Traffic. It would be a nightmare.
2. It flies in the face of what the City is trying to do with the
South Shore Central Vision. At 19 acres, it's about 20% of the 97-acre South Shore Central District. I've seen conceptual plans for the area and it always showed the American-Statesman site as kind of broken up with pedestrian passageways and paseos leading to and opening up to the lake.
They're trying to provide more direct access to the lake and to make that whole 97-acre South Shore Central District more pedestrian friendly. Putting a big arena/parking lot at the AAS site is not going to achieve that.
3. It's prime real estate. I'd much rather see the area developed as hotels, condos, apartments, affordable housing, retail and parkland because those things (except for public parkland) would generate all kinds of property tax revenues for the City. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but if UT buys the land and builds an arena, the City won't get any property tax revenue since the UT System is exempt from paying property taxes.
I just think it's a horrible choice of location.