A Gigantic Dome: WTF City Government?
This is a guest post by Stephanie Norwood.
On July 21, Mayor Langford broke ground on what will eventually be the BJCC’s Birmingham Dome. This monstrous building will be able to seat 57,000 spectators as well as offer room for exhibitions. Having a building like this will allow Birmingham to put in bids for international events like the World Cup of Soccer or even Mayor Langford’s nearly laughable Olympics scheming.
Having a facility like this will only open doors for Birmingham, right? So this is definitely a good thing, isn’t it?
Not the way I see it. We all know the economy has gone to crap and people are losing jobs left and right. In theory a huge public works project should create jobs. But where the hell is Birmingham’s City Council planning on finding the estimated 500 million dollars to build this thing? Or better yet, the three to four billion it’s actually going to cost before it’s all said and done?
And it’s not exactly like the city has the money anyway. If they did, surely they would have paid off the 3.2 Billion dollars that the Sewer system can’t pay. Or maybe save the four schools closing in the city in the next year. Or even maybe hire some new officers to combat the shortage we have in our police force that’s trying to protect us from the US’s 4th highest homicide rate.
Ultimately, I believe this is a case of Birmingham getting too big for its britches. I don’t see a point in having a huge fancy dome downtown if the city is mismanaged for anyone to come and enjoy it. “If you build it, they will come” may work in Field of Dreams, but it’s been my experience that people aren’t going anywhere they feel unsafe in. If the citizens are worried about what’s in their water, where their kids are going to school next year, and if they are going to get gunned down, my bet, City Council, is that the 2020 Olympics in Birmingham is the last thing on their mind.
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While I don’t believe anybody in the Birmingham (or Jefferson County) government to be competent or free of corruption, I SUPPORT THE DOME. Here is why:
1. The dome money is separate from the rest of the money. The money from the dome comes from the hotel tax, and no other need (schools, police, etc…) can touch it. We already went through this with Jefferson county and a court order that said that certain taxes are illegal and certain taxed have to be appropriated for what the law says it was appropriated for. If the government is going to tax hotels, might as well use the money for something that will attract people to hotels.
2. Domes are built by governments. The Georgia Dome, the Superdome, the Alamodome, the Metrodome, Silverdome, etc… It isn’t capitalism at its finest, but it is the way things go. It is one of the few entries into business that governments do OK with because it is relatively simple. 1. You build a building. 2. You sell the space. 3. You sell the naming rights. While I agree that private industry does a better job at the other issues of having an arena (concession, event staff, management), few entities have the capital (money) to build such an arena.
3. Now is the best time. Labor and construction costs will be cheaper than ever. If we stand a chance of getting some of that socialist federal government money (“stimulus package money”) now is the time. If the economy is ever going to recover, we need a facility to take advantage of the recovery. We criticize Birmingham for being in the past. Here is a chance to modernize! Let’s take it.
4. It isn’t about sports! Yes, the UAB Blazers, the Birmingham Bowl, the SWAC, high school Playoffs, NCAA March Madness, etc… all things that Legion Field and the BJCC holds (or used to hold) will use the new dome, but that alone isn’t enough to justify it. But what makes it worth building (and why the city justifies making hotels pay a tax) is the business that gets no press that will use the dome. Conventions and business meetings. What do you think the Georgia Dome is used for when the Falcons are not playing? Same for you Saints fans (CJ… Who dat?) and the Superdome. Not only can Legion Field be torn down and the property sold (the stadium would be condemned by and honest engineer, really…), but we wouldn’t have to pay to upkeep it, more sporting events can be hosted, the current sporting events would have a larger draw, and we would have the facilities to host events that Birmingham previously didn’t have a chance to have.
The situation isn’t perfect (corrput government, lack of pro sports interest, a recession), but we have the opportunity and the need for a spark to the city. Let Larry build the dome, and then vote him out and put a competent government in charge of this city/county and give them a facility to work with.
Adam, this is a very well thought out and constructed argument, and I appreciate the time you took to construct it. Ordinarily, I would welcome a dome of such scale as a chance to improve the city’s reputation and introduce new commerce. However, I just do not feel that this is the right time or that this is a sound use of funds at the moment.
While I concede your point on labor costs and materials being at a low, I still cannot justify in my mind how this building will recover its own cost. Sure, some money will come from sponsors. But all those billions of dollars? That is a lot of sponsorships in a time where companies do not have the surplus funds to purchase advertisement and naming rights. And while your mention of the hotel tax as funding is admirable, I highly doubt if the hotels are going to generate enough tax revenue to pay for this. I fear that the funds left uncovered by these two sources will come down to more loans and debt to be continuously refinanced until the situation snowballs into that of the sewer system.
Admittedly, my financial education has been lacking. As a science major, my opinions are formed from observation of situations. I feel that Birmingham would be better served using the funds allocated by the hotel tax to improve the venues we already have.
This is the glory of opinion/editorial articles. They incite thought and discussion which can lead to new ideas or change of current ones
I think the better question in this matter is why ground was broken before an architectural plan was drawn. The answer, quite plainly, is that the ceremony and Langford’s pressing of the matter is a last ditch effort to summon some sort of support before his court hearing at the end of this month. This dome will not be built by 2013 because the minute Langford enters Federal Prison the commission will repeal this decision and retract the funds, allocating them to something far more useful. (We can only hope.)
I’m sorry that is why Georgia,Fla,and TN. Votes matter more they know like up North and everywhere. It takes money to make money the reason why Visionland is failling is the lack of costers and state surport. Alabama small thinking is losing there sons and daughters because we can’t stay out the tiny box. Do you want some real pride in Alabama for once. When your family goes out of town and met with family members whom stay in real cities. Would you like to rep your pro teams like they do or just the college teams like everyone has even Main has a college team. I now reside in Indianapolis the city was once very sleepy before I came. They put a nice mall downtown made entertainment areas rebuilt both stadiums and making money at it. Pray for the Pacers they kind of hurting us, but that is how the bizz is run. In fact we rebuilt or Airport it cost a billion dollars. Ya talking about small money we done all this in seven yars at the same time. I’m from Alabama, but ya amaze me on how slow ya is.
I totally agree that Birmingham has got a lot more problems that they should be worrying about. I figure the city will be bankrupt here within the next 5 years unless we completely change the city government leaders.
wow. I see what you mean, Stone.
yeah….
Ms. Norwood, I will not try to change your mind about our Multi-purpose Facility, but a couple of your statements need to be addressed. This facilty will be paid for as Mr. Adam blak stated earlier with a hotel tax. He did not mention the tax on car rentals, table wine at resturants and the doubling of the business license fees on all businesses in the city of Birmingham, which I might add was 100% supported by the Birmingham Area Chamber of Commerce, and this fee alone was reported to bring in about $19 million a year. Also Mayor Langford imposed a 1 cent increase on the city’s sales tax, and this money is to be alotted for Police and Firemen raises as well as street paving.
As for the homicide rate, it does not matter how many police you have on the streets, if someone you know wants to kill you, there is not a whole lot that can be done about it. People need to stop just reading the head lines and go deeper into the article and they will see that most of the homicides committed here was done by the someone the dead person knew. The City of Birmingham has more police officers at this moment than any agency in the state, including Jefferson county Sheriff and the Alabama State Troopers.
Birmingham and Jefferson county are two seperate entities they are two seperate governing bodies and they have their own tax money completely seperate of each other and they do not interfere with each others business. The sewer debt is soley a Jefferson county government issue, Birmingham did not sign on the sewer debt so the city of Birmingham does not owe 3.2 billion dollars, Jefferson county government does, and neither does Homewood, Hoover, Bessemer and etc.
I could understand all the negative feeling about the Multi-purpose facility if Birmingham had not ever hosted a large regional or national event, but we have and did it quite well, the event did not return because we did not have big enough facilites to host bigger crowds.
Now as far as the Olympics are concern, I think it is quite far fetched.
This facility has been planned for years, and in all those years there was always some flimsy excuse as to why we don’t need it.
Birmingham cannot bring in heavy industry because the EPA says we have bad air, that is why Mercedes and Honda located outside of
Birmingham and Jefferson County, so the only jobs we can go after is white collar jobs, conventions and sporting events. Either way we will have to spend money.