Plenty of Horne
Bucks Sign Contract for Park East Land
Press conference with Abele celebrates award of 10 acres of county land for $1 and big dreams.
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Press conference with Abele celebrates award of 10 acres of county land for $1 and big dreams. Back to the full article.
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Hey, remember when Jason Kidd plead guilty to beating his wife? Remember the other times he was accused of domestic violence? Yeah, neither does anyone in this goddamn city.
Why do Chris Abele’s “job programs” always involve giving away prime county-owned land to mega-wealthy individuals and corporations so they can develop it (Park East, the Transit Center, O’Donnell Park)? Other developers somehow manage to build “feasible” projects without getting land for free or in a sweetheart deal. It’s called the free market.
Abele is a big advocate of corporate-welfare socialism with trickle-down trickles for the little people. And those “1,000s of jobs, right now!” is that to build the Bucks gold-plated gym? Will the Bucks really pay taxes on it–or their offices?
Michael, thanks for pointing out that on the top of giving the Bucks owners free land worth $8.8 million, taxpayers will be paying for remediation, debris removal, sewers, etc. with state, county, city and MMSD taxes. Just as city taxpayers will pay $1.5 million to tear down the city garage we’ll give the “Head of the Herd” for free.
Gosh, what else can we think of to give these guys? Any first-born children or politicians’ souls. Scratch the latter. That deal’s done.
That’s a whole lotta dudes.
@Milwaukee Native:
Yeah, all those dozen or so big projects that fell through in the free market because the county/city wouldn’t give any assistance to the Park East land. The city/county/state really failed when they didn’t remove the freeway pilings when tearing down the freeway. Without those the land would be really valuable and already have filled up and we wouldn’t even be having this discussion right now. Effectively the land is worthless without massive public subsidy. The free market failed to get that land filled for 15 years.
Thank God Abele is running this instead of people who hold rigid ideological viewpoints.
Abele, the Bucks aand MMAC are masters of fuzzy math:
Among the jobs created, MU’s Anthony Pennington-Cross’s says there will be 55 new jobs at the practice facility, including “Bucks players and staff.” Talk about double dipping! All those jobs already exist, some with stratospheric salaries. Others will move from the St. Francis facility. The rest of this report is equally dramatic “fiction,” commissioned by MMAC. Most jobs will be in offices by 2027. Wow!
http://mmaction.org/agenda/arena-impacts-study-by-dr–anthony-pennington-cross
For comparison, here’s Abele’s fancy, fact-challenged chart about econ impact. It embellishes the APC “study,” which also included new job projections for the Bradley Center site and “entertainment mall,” not just Park East. But facts are over-rated.
To analyze any of these numbers, start with a few stiff drinks, maybe at one of the arena-area bars the Bucks mall will put the squeeze on…
http://urbanmilwaukee.com/2015/09/09/plenty-of-horne-bucks-sign-contract-for-park-east-land/nggallery/image/economic-impact-of-park-east-redevelopment/
@Ryan
First, can we agree that it’s been 12 years since freeway demo was completed in 2003? And the Great Recession halted development in MKE and across U.S. for about 5 years.
Yes, governments like kicking cans down roads. Sounds like they did that with freeway demo. Also with this entire deal for Park East, WCD borrowing that will cost $186M per city comptroller, massive debt for a cash-strapped city and county, etc.
The county could have given Head of the Herd (what an apt name) a credit for X amount for the developer to cover site prep costs, as they did with MSOE for Viets Field. Mutually beneficial.
Instead math-challenged King Abele (a college dropout) gave the land away for free AND committed taxpayers to paying for the site prep costs form state, county, city & MMSD funds.
The Kohl’s deal for Park East reportedly fell apart because employees did not want to commute to downtown instead of Menomonee Falls. It sounds like Bucks Superfan Abele just wanted to show some love for his Sports Gods. He’s used to giving away family money, not negotiating deals.
@”Milwaukee Native” “taxpayers will be paying for remediation, debris removal, sewers, etc. with state, county, city and MMSD taxes.” Just to be clear that is not actually what the TID report says. It says coordination, not all costs. How much that comes to is uncertain, but I don’t believe that is the entire cost.
@Ryan Well I agree the lands wasn’t really worth the $8.8 million and should be sold for whatever price gets it on the tax roles. But that doesn’t actually mean the Bucks deal was a good deal to make.
Tearing down the freeway was one of the best things ever to happen to downtown. The pace of redevelopment has been excruciatingly slow, but Milwaukee is a slow growth metro area, and there was (and still is) a huge supply of more attractive development sites and development opportunities in or near downtown, for residential, office, hotels, or mixed use. The vacant former freeway land, and in particular the parcels west of the Milwaukee River, were always destined to develop relatively late in Milwaukee’s downtown urban renaissance. The Pabst Brewery has far superior amenities, but is still waiting for development proposals for three of its vacant parcels nearly 10 years into its redevelopment process. In the absence of the Bucks proposal (and in particular, if the Bucks left town and the area around the Bradley Center became a ghost town), this land could easily sit vacant for another decade.
The development by the Bucks team seems like a credible way to advance the development timeframe for this area by a decade, even if it’s a sweetheart deal. There is no credible “Plan B” that would offer a development proposal of this magnitude and relative quality by a development team with the financial resources to make it happen on an expedited schedule. This is an unequivocally positive outcome for this land and for Milwaukee.
@David Holmes There was a very credible offer (at the same time as the Bucks) for much of the Park East. And a lot of the Park East will still stay vacant for many many years anyhow as the Bucks plan is spread out over a decade plus. I do hope they fill it up, but items like the practice facility should not be in the PE (there’s a much better location not that far away).
@Dave Reid Are you talking about the offer by a developer (can’t remember the name) for just one of the Park East superblocks for also $1 but then was asking the city to pay all costs to relocate sewers, remove the freeway pilings and cleanup costs. If so, yes that was a credible offer but it’s still not anywhere near the Bucks offer who’ll fill up the entire Park East area and they’ll be paying for at least some of those costs too.
@Ryan It is true the city doesn’t appear to be paying for all of sewer relocation costs (they are paying some) for the Bucks proposal but they are paying for a new garage in the Park East to the tune of $35 million. And beyond the practice facility (does this even pay property taxes?), which should not be in the Park East, and the city paid for parking garage “mixed use” building (has some apartments, retail, office) nothing proposed by the Bucks in the Park East is guaranteed and is years and years out anyhow. The plan goes to 2027. It’s not to say a deal with the Bucks shouldn’t have happened (though the County portion of the deal is awful), and I’ve always felt the land in the Park East (west of the river) should have a big discount, but the “plan” in the PE is problematic.
The Bucks owners have made fortunes in real estate. Give the shrewd billionaires credit for what they have pulled off. They know what they are doing here. They usually have to buy their “distressed assets” (which they called the Bucks franchise). In the case of Park East, they got some slow-moving, but prime, land for free. Now they can afford to pay up to 5 times assessed/appraised value for other nearby parcels.
Whatever Bucks owners (or more likely, developers they sell to) will have to pay for site prep will be far below the PE land’s appraised value, which will only rise with a new arena and the continuation of development downtown.
The Bucks owners will “own Milwaukee’s future,” at least in this part of downtown. Just don’t expect them to do anything beyond what strictly serves their bottom line with these 30-plus acres of public land. They own property throughout the U.S. and probably the world. Marc Lasry is a major player in Puerto Rico. MKE will just have to hope for the best.
And by the time this all plays out, perhaps many of the key deal makers will have moved on or retired…
Michael
1) Will you be able to find out who are the members of Head of the Herd?
2) Will you be able to get copies of the various agreements?
The PE land seemed pretty much worthless as it is, so I don’t see the fuss as to why the $1 sale is a big deal. The fact that no one made a credible offer to develop anything while it stood vacant collecting dust for TWELVE YEARS tells me all I need to know about it being “prime real estate.” It seems trolls view this as an opportunity to bash the evil %1’ers which isn’t terribly surprising. It is amazing that these owners bought the Bucks with the intention of making money…Wow, what a concept! Not to mention the Bucks would have left without the deal going down as it did, which no one ever seems to mention. Given that this is going down in Milwaukee, no matter how great of a deal it was a large amount of uproar is to be expected because if Milwaukeens hate anything its progress in the private sector. It’s amazing 2 New Yorkers could ever even get anything done in this city with the amount of people who view teachers and bus drivers as the lifeblood of Milwaukees economy. Luckily no one cares what these people think and the deal is signed, sealed and delivered! Fear the deer baby!
@Will
Urban planner Peter Park, who orchestrated the PE freeway demo, told Mike Gousha today he always expected the county’s part of Park East would be the last to be developed.
Why bash the incredible investments/successes by local developers and other efforts and businesses that have revitalized greater downtown and the Menomonee Valley? Milwaukee is not a damsel in distress just waiting for NY princes to rescue her. Sure, let the visiting billionaires make some bucks here, but why play doormat and make them “master developer” of Westown–with no strings attached?
The main reason Westown suffers is because of decades of building people-repelling mega-projects–without any thought of human scale and livability. What will a massive soul-less mall with national pub chains add, especially if it siphons from local businesses? Will Westown’s new landlords be visionary and commit to development that truly serves the whole community and economy? Or will everyone just “Fear the Deer” and let them do whatever they please–chips falling where they may?
Are we really “lucky” that no power brokers care about what citizens think, unless they’re part of an elite? Urban planners say widespread community engagement is the key to successful city development, not top-town fiats. Garbage in, garbage out…