New Arena Plan & Pabst Brewing Returns
Will legislature pass new arena plan? Will city and county have to contribute? Will Pabst brew here again?
Last week was full of news regarding the new arena, which would replace the BMO Bradley Center.
Gov. Scott Walker’s announcement of a $220 million plan to help pay for the new NBA arena was the news that got the crowd cheering last week. Well, there were some boos too. But certainly the issue generated lots of discussion.
Will the plan get passed? Rich Kirchen of the Business Journal reported that Assembly Speaker Rep. Robin Vos and Sen. Alberta Darling weren’t quite sold on Walker’s proposal. “I think it’s not an easy sell,” Darling told Kirchen. Said Vos: “A piece that’s really missing is the city of Milwaukee has to step up as well as the county.” Vos added, “I’m not so sure I support $220 million…That’s a little bit rich.”
Will the city provide some support for the project? “A lot of this is dependent on site acquisition,” Mayor Tom Barrett told Alison Bauter of the Business Journal.
Although, the Business Journal’s coverage of the arena was extensive and in-depth it was Don Behm and the Journal Sentinel that might have given the final clue as to where the arena will be located. Hint: take a close look at the “Pay Their Way” graphic with this story. We’re betting the land just north of the Bradley Center is the chosen site. Expect a site announcement shortly.
In other Bucks news, Kirchen revealed that the Bucks have raised $118 million from minority investors in the team. Expect all of them to be lobbying the legislature to support the arena funding plan.
And, according to a tweet by Alex Lasry, the Bucks will officially move into Schlitz Park on Tuesday.
New @Bucks office starting to come together. Officially relocate to Schlitz Park Tues #greenandgrowing#lovetheviewpic.twitter.com/MwPHhKDzra
— Alexander Lasry (@AlexanderLasry) February 1, 2015
The Return of Pabst
While the arena plan was the big news last week, the story that put the ribbon on it came from a an article by Tom Daykin of the Journal Sentinel, that the Pabst Brewing Co. might be returning to Milwaukee, at least for some of its operation. Eugene Kashper, Pabst’s owner, toured various sites at The Brewery, the former Pabst Brewing site. “We want to be in an authentic, old Pabst space,” Kashper said.
The question Daykin didn’t ask, and one that I’m sure Matt Wild over at the Milwaukee Record is dying to know: Did the group that was formed called Milwaukee Should Own Pabst Blue Ribbon, play any role in getting Kashper to bring Pabst home?
In Other News…
-A new office building could be coming to the Third Ward. Daykin reported that the City Plan Commission voted to approve vacating an alley at N. Milwaukee, N. Young, and E. Erie streets that would provide more land, thus allowing Commercial Horizons Inc. to develop the property for an office building.
300-306 S. 1st St. being demolished.
–David, Winograd‘s group, LCM Funds 27 Parking LLC, is demolishing a 12,000-square-foot warehouse at 300-306 S. 1st St. to create more parking for his neighboring South Water Works complex.
–According to another story by Daykin, the International Building, 611 W. National Ave., which the city recently acquired from Esperanza Unida Inc. through a foreclosure, will be sold to 611 West National Avenue Milwaukee, LLC for $1.3 millon. The firm will convert the upper floors into 36 apartments while maintaining the integrity of the famous and highly visible “Mural of Peace,” by Milwaukee artist Reynaldo Hernandez.
-The Findorff company has been building in Wisconsin, and Milwaukee for 125 years, and to celebrate they will be sharing their Postcards from the Past, with images all the way back to Findorff’s beginnings at the start of the nineteenth century.
And in case you missed it, we featured the Third Phase of The North End in last week’s Friday Photos.
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Political Contributions Tracker
Displaying political contributions between people mentioned in this story. Learn more.
- November 21, 2018 - Tom Barrett received $200 from Alex Lasry
- March 30, 2016 - Tom Barrett received $2,000 from Alex Lasry
- March 3, 2016 - Tom Barrett received $1,000 from Alex Lasry
Plats and Parcels
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New Third Ward Tower Will Be Milwaukee’s Priciest
Mar 3rd, 2024 by Jeramey Jannene
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New Corporate Headquarters, 130 Jobs For Downtown
Feb 25th, 2024 by Jeramey Jannene
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A Four-Way Preservation Fight Over Wisconsin Avenue
Feb 18th, 2024 by Jeramey Jannene
Rich Kirchen (not this poster) also reports that the ‘jock tax’ is only expected to bring in $6.5MM/year to retire $220MM of debt: http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/blog/2015/01/how-gov-walkers-nba-jock-tax-base-fell-to-6-5m.html
Not counting interest, that’s 33 years to pay off the principal. Using the current standards of the NBA, we’ll have had to build two new arenas for them by then.
Scottie says the revenue will go up to 13.5MM in 2017….pfffft; that’s still 16 years not counting interest. No wonder Vos and Darling need the city and county (whose finances they separately decimate in other arrangements) to kick in some too…
@Rich The $6.5 million per year is the baseline (what’s being paid today that will continue to go to the state). The reason the revenue will go up to $13.5m million in 2017 is because of the new NBA TV deal. That’s sure to happen. The real question is in later years will the NBA continue to see the rate of revenue growth the predictions used to pay this off show.
Just to expand upon Dave’s point: The NBA players receive a certain percentage of revenues as determined by the collective bargaining agreement. Currently, the players get roughly 49% of revenue. The NBA just signed a new TV deal. This season, the NBA got $890 million from the TV contract. Next year, the NBA will get $2.6 billion. Half of that increase will have to go to the players. It’s a 10 year TV deal, so in theory the value of that contract could collapse in 10 years, which would put this plan in jeopardy, but the first round of increases are as certain as anything in business (assuming they don’t decide to go crazy and cancel a season). Also, the plan calls for repayment over 25 years, so 16 years not counting interest (or any increase over the life of that) is probably a reasonable term.