The Antiplanner has never visited Memphis, so when I was watching a video of the flooding in Memphis, I was surprised to see a huge pyramid. “Looks like a government boondoggle to me,” I said.
Flickr photo by Exothermic.
Sure enough. The Pyramid Arena opened in 1991 after being built at a cost of $65 million which was “publicly financed” by the city of Memphis and Shelby County. It is supposedly the sixth-largest pyramid in the world. Significantly, four of the five larger pyramids (all in Egypt) were also government boondoggles, the only exception being the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas. “Though it was a controversial architectural undertaking at the time,” says one web site, “most Memphians have come to accept, if not appreciate, the Pyramid.”
After opening, the arena was used by the University of Memphis basketball team and various music events. But, for some reason, after a mere decade the city decided the Pyramid was obsolete. It created a New Memphis Arena Public Building Authority in 2001 charged with building a replacement.
When the PDE-5 enzyme tends to block the serotonin transporter in the body to cialis 10mg canada make sure the action of serotonin in the body is increased at the postsynaptic cleft. The tadalafil 20mg local touch that used to be there is vanishing but every trend has its plus points and negatives. There are some products that copy cheap cialis india top selling brands and just give you a fake product which has no positive effects. Many people think of these kinds of exercises have worked well to reduce stress and boost blood circulation and rejuvenate the reproductive system. levitra generic vs Photo by Lucas Glica.
The new building, the FedExForum,opened in 2004 at a cost of a mere $250 million. FedEx paid $92 million for “naming rights.” The remainder is to be repaid with a “sales tax on items sold at the arena, a ‘seat fee’ charged on each ticket sold, car-rental taxes, city and county hotel taxes, and a contribution from [the city-owned] Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division.” (How generous of a government agency to “contribute” to this boondoggle.) Lately the Public Building Authority has had trouble making the payments on the bond and has asked the city to help it refinance at lower interest rates.
In 2001 (perhaps not coincidentally, the year the city decided to build a new arena), the Vancouver Grizzlies NBA team became the Memphis Grizzlies and played in the Pyramid Arena until 2004, when both the Grizzlies and the University of Memphis moved to the FedExForum. One reason to build a new arena would be to get more revenue seats, but the two arenas have almost exactly the same number of seats.
To help finance construction of the Forum, the city received a $20 million grant from the federal government to build a parking garage–on the condition that the garage also include an “intermodal transit center” and public bus station. But the city had also agreed to give the Memphis Grizzlies 100 percent of the profits from running the garage, so when it tried to open the transit center, the Grizzlies turned them away. This led to a FBI fraud investigation known as Garage Gate. Apparently, no one was ever indicted, but it seems that a lot of money passed hands under various tables.
Meanwhile, the Pyramid sat relatively empty for several years. Anticipating the opening of the Forum, in 2003 the city began negotiating with Bass Pro–which is known for seeking millions of dollars of subsidies for many of its stores–to become the anchor store of a Pyramid shopping mall. In 2008, the sporting-goods chain finally agreed to lease the arena for 55 years–on the condition that the city pay $30 million for seismic upgrades. The store is expected to open late this year.
Typically, the city claimed “that the taxpayers weren’t on the hook for” the seismic refit. In fact, the city committed to spending $63 million on the seismic refit, parking garages, land acquisition, and other infrastructure to make the shopping mall work. The bonds sold to pay for these activities are to be repaid out of sales taxes collected from a Tourist Development Zone in and around the arena. Hmm, I wonder who pays sales taxes if not taxpayers? Perhaps wisely, Shelby County sold its interest in the Pyramid to the city in 2009.
Sandbagging has apparently protected the Pyramid from the flood, which crested Tuesday. But who will protect taxpayers from boondoggles like the Pyramid and FedExForum? This is the story of almost every major city in America: one damn boondoggle after another, each more expensive than the last, all in the name of “economic development” but really nothing more than make-work projects for favored contractors and developers. Is it any wonder that people move to the suburbs?
Randal, suburbia doesn’t insulate one from boondoggledom. There are tons of HOAs around here struggling because of incompetently-run Special Districts. Last election a SD nearby to the south had a ballot measure to increase assessments to replace dead-dying trees. I won’t spend the bytes explaining exactly why the landscaping is dying, but the tax increase to replace dying landscaping due to incompetence is the point – you can’t move somewhere to escape human incompetence. It is everywhere, even in private government.
DS
When HAVEN’T advanced societies spent their money on these type of projects?
Pyramids and temples, amphitheaters and circuses and arenas, public baths, cathedrals, shrines, monuments, opera houses, plazas, landscaped parks, zoos and menageries, stadiums, arctic and oceanic exploration, archaeological digs and restorations, astronomical observatories, space exploration, etc. – its been going on from the dawn of time.
One of the signs and hallmarks of being an advanced civilization is the ability to finance and construct public buildings of leisure and spectacle and use public works of this sort. You, know, as opposed to living in caves and trees and mud huts with dung and straw roofing and spending your day toiling from dawn to dusk just to get food when you aren’t busy worshipping trees and snakes and volcanoes and fire spirits or trying to save your family’s life from the neighboring group of savages who has suddenly decided to make war on you.
You had me until the this: “Is it any wonder that people move to the suburbs?”
If people move from the cities to the suburbs, I doubt boondoggles rate high on the list of reasons. If I leave the city center for the ‘burbs or country, it will be to have more space, a yard, a garden, and to escape noise and high rent for low square footage.
One of the signs and hallmarks of being an advanced civilization is the ability to finance and construct public buildings of leisure and spectacle and use public works of this sort.
Yes, but it’s a fairly recent phenomenon that those buildings of “leisure and spectacle” are built with public funds expressly for private profit.
“You, know, as opposed to living in caves and trees and mud huts with dung and straw roofing and spending your day toiling from dawn to dusk just to get food when you aren’t busy worshipping trees and snakes and volcanoes and fire spirits or trying to save your family’s life from the neighboring group of savages who has suddenly decided to make war on you.”
More pontification. Numerous studies have shown that hunter-gatherers enjoyed more leisure time than typical members of industrialized society.
Will the making up of sh!t never end?
The Antiplanner wrote (Emphasis added):
Meanwhile, the Pyramid sat relatively empty for several years. Anticipating the opening of the Forum, in 2003 the city began negotiating with Bass Pro–which is known for seeking millions of dollars of subsidies for many of its stores–to become the anchor store of a Pyramid shopping mall. In 2008, the sporting-goods chain finally agreed to lease the arena for 55 years–on the condition that the city pay $30 million for seismic upgrades. The store is expected to open late this year.
It is reasonable to assume that people that designed and built the Pyramid in the first place were aware of the New Madrid (Missouri) fault zone, located a relatively short distance north of Memphis along the Mississippi River.
In regards to subsidized……….anything. Has the antiplanner ever done research in regards to public or subsidized housing. I remember videos of his presentations where he described public housing in major cities in America being demolished when they became just unbearable places very shortly as a result of crime, drugs, vandalism or simply government ineptitude; my question is what about Europe? has european subsidized housing fell victim to crime or vandals or resulted in a huge demolition of those apartments. Are there any examples of public housing in America that hasn’t fallen victim to the wrecking ball and got along just fine.
what about Europe? has european subsidized housing fell victim to crime or vandals or resulted in a huge demolition of those apartments.
The French have notable problems in several of their cities with such housing, altho now it is recognized that many of the issues arise from equity and how the siting and design don’t account for equity. Of course nothing is being done about it.
DS