@Lake, it sounds like that you are okay to spend $3 of COJ money to get $1 for the Eastside. That is essentially what is happening in this deal. Why not just spend $3 to get $3 for the Eastside? Also stating "Because the negative impact of displacement and gentrification is a serious community concern" isn't really addressing the issue here at all. This Stadium Deal will only further gentrification & the market since the deal was announced has proved that. Again, please explain how funding 10+ years from now that we can't leverage will do anything to help what you stated? Hell, 5 years... You could care less about Buffalo, but the point remains that the city/state didn't need to come out of pocket to get that commitment like the Jags have. Again, we have less than 50:50 split & also supposedly these CBA's are for the betterment of disenfranchised communities. The Jags were also able to turn that into a positive monetary return for their own dollar... that we have already subsidized.
@Marcus. If you have been following the legislation & watched any of the meetings, you would have also realized that this deal was not done back in May & has since been tweaked multiple times in minor ways. You, Lake, & others have defended this deal, to be blunt, because of the CBA. The CBA is quite literally the distraction for the bull. How hard have you really looked into this deal? It is comical to see the Jags own lawyer completely dismantle their own logic for their own CBA funding. It's a money grab & these most recent comments prove that. This also demonstrates the willingness of the Jags to flex their muscle in the agreement for which we need their mercy. Aka, back to the $25M credit & parking agreement. There has been quite a bit of dialogue & discussion since May, and it has only exposed that this deal was rushed. No other way to say it. City Council realized that only a month or so ago. The parking deal will absolutely blow up in our faces or we will pay handsomely in another fashion. 12 months or less & you can quote this post. We can cherry pick deals all we want, but looking at just the bottom-line numbers for a deal, is not genuine to this discussion at all. I've said before several times, that containing this deal with the stadium was all that was needed for us to do. We tried a little too hard here & will reap the rewards of that.
@Jaxlongtimer, I'm sure its similar, but if you look at the aerial around the stadium, the land is not a single-purpose & it's not anywhere near Downtown. Our 50+ acres are for Jags games, the FL GA game and that's about it. Some of the acreage gets utilized for smaller events/concerts but nowhere near what is utilized for Jags games (which is again less than 10 days a years).
@JaxoNOLE, I do agree with most of what you are saying. I'm fine with being hosed a little as a taxpayer for an NFL team. As someone who hopes to see our city improve, this deal has served as a major hurdle for our stadium district to ever truly turn around. Perhaps what's more frustrating, is to know that there will likely be a series of agreements made in the next 5 years, that will ask the taxpayer for more $$, with the promise of a flashy stadium "entertainment" district. We will of course do it, because otherwise, the land will sit vacant for the next 30 years. That's the true crime in this whole agreement. Our hands have been tied behind our backs - quite literally. Khan has moved all his chess pieces in place to get everything he wanted - with the taxpayer fronting a significant portion of the cost in anything he is involved in when it comes to DT Jacksonville. (Not the beaches though!)
