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Kim Pegula: Bills' Stadium Plans on Hold until after November Elections - John Wawrow AP Story


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11 minutes ago, TheFunPolice said:

New Era looked amazing on TV Monday night... great atmosphere... great venue...

 

Why not just do a massive retrofit right where the stadium is now? All of the infrastructure is already there, as is the tradition and the brand new practice facilities and fields.

It’s a valid question. The County had an opportunity to do this 5 or 6 years ago, but opted to half-step and do a much smaller scale “ reno”. Window dressing ,really. The uncertain future of the team was probably a factor, but the cost of a full renovation has probably increased substantially.

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53 minutes ago, Lurker said:

 

Bupkis.   Many mid-sized cities have active convention centers and Buffalo can compete for business in that space nine moths a year. 

 

It will never be Orlando or Nashville, but it can certainly be Pittsburgh, Louisville or Jacksonville...

 

https://www.cvent.com/en/marketing/top-50/2017-top-destinations-us.php

 

 

 

When you convention destination is behind South Florida's 4th option, as well as places like Columbus Ohio, your large convention center is going to hemorrhage money.

 

In Jacksonville, the costs to the city by the two developers bidding to build a center are 950 million and 1.2 billion!  The developer would put up the construction costs (500-600 million) and then be paid  more than twice that by the city over 25-30 years.  AND the developer would be paid to manage to center.  AND the city would eat all operative losses.

 

It's the dumbest deal repeated over and over.  No one wants to visit Jacksonville as a destination.

 

30 minutes ago, Kirby Jackson said:

It’s a losing proposition in those cities. Pittsburgh averages a $3M deficit a year. They can swear by the economic impact of said conventions but that’s debatable. I know it’s a small sample size but the few that I am involved in each year have narrowed their destinations to drive attendance. The one goes to Vegas, New Orleans, Orlando, San Juan and Chicago. They tried San Antonio, St. Louis, and Memphis but couldn’t get the attendance that they were getting in those other places. There isn’t all of a sudden going to be a steady stream of big national conventions heading to Buffalo. 

 

This.

 

Attendees want to spend as little time in the convention center as possible.  They essentially are going as a vacation paid for by work. 

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1 hour ago, Kirby Jackson said:

It’s a losing proposition in those cities. Pittsburgh averages a $3M deficit a year. 

 

$3 million operating deficit?   That's the cost of mile or two of street repaving (i.e., Erie County just spent $2.2 million to build a bike trail on the old Bethlehem Steel property).

 

Hotel room bookings, restaurant seatings and other tourism revenue surely offset any subsidy of that magnitude.   Regarding Pittsburgh, convention business brought in $90 million in direct spending last year, for example...

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1 hour ago, TheFunPolice said:

New Era looked amazing on TV Monday night... great atmosphere... great venue...

 

Why not just do a massive retrofit right where the stadium is now? All of the infrastructure is already there, as is the tradition and the brand new practice facilities and fields.

I have to agree with the announcers, it was actually neat to see the fans dressed in blue, but glowing red from the heat lamps!

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  • 2 weeks later...

...well there goes the new stadium money...

 

 

Jon Campbell, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle Published 10:37 a.m. ET Nov. 13, 2018 |

 

ALBANY - New York will provide Amazon up to $1.7 billion in cash and tax breaks to lure the major online retailer and cloud-computing giant to the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens, which would make it the the largest incentive package ever provided to a private company by the state.

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NYC has been trying to revitalize the battle zone that is Queens for decades.

It started with Citibank and then MetLife. Those are oasis drops in the bucket in what is a horrendous part of town.

People literally run to the "safety" of the subway stations before 5.

If Amazon ever did move to Queens, they'd have a hard time staffing there. 

 

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