Church wants $24.5 million from Atlanta Falcons for new stadium site

SB Nation ^ | Jun 21 2013, 11:04a | Jason Kirk

[Pan_Yan]

The biggest issue facing the Atlanta Falcons' eye-popping new football stadium: whether to build it just north of the current Georgia Dome, which would mean greater distance from hotels, the airport, transit, and the city's skyline, or just south, which would mean buying the land presently occupied by a pair of historic churches.

The team prefers the south site. Those churches also prefer the south site. Friendship Baptist, established in 1866 and the wellspring for both Morehouse and Spelman colleges, has rejected the city's offer of $13.5 million for the property, asking for nearly double that. Mayor Kasim Reed told 11 Alive he's upped the offer by $2 million. Meanwhile, the state is negotiating with Martin Luther King Drive's Mount Vernon Baptist.

While the houses of worship could stand to collect windfalls (the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports the combined land is worth just more than $2.2 million), they are of course not governed strictly by financials:

"I don't think [money] should even enter our decision-making. I really don't," said [Friendship] parishioner Juanita Jones Abernathy, whose late husband [Ralph David Abernathy] was a confidant of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. "It's a landmark. I think it should remain. It's been there for generations, and it needs to be there for generations to come."

Considering Mt. Vernon Baptist's real estate is worth an amount similar to Friendship Baptist's, it could cost the city and state significantly more than $30 million to secure the land, which could raise the public cost of the stadium beyond the $200 million for which it's on the hook. A $30 million price tag would amount to 3.7 percent of the $800 million the team's committed to building the facility, and it wouldn't include the $50 million Arthur Blank's setting aside for undetermined neighborhood improvements as a part of the overhaul.

Can the Falcons show the city and state it's worth that much money to play a few blocks south? I don't know. I'm imagining the kind of church one could build with $20 million in one's pocket, but luckily, it's not my decision to make.

The Falcons stadium deal is, as far as stadium deals with public components go, a relatively good one for its city. That $200 million was earmarked for tourism anyway, and it's been argued that an even bigger public number would need to be spent in order to maintain the apparently far-more-aged-than-the-human-mind-can-fathom Georgia Dome. Land acquisition fees from the public's trusts will never be popular, though at least they'd be going to longtime local institutions and not some corporation, right?

The parties have until Aug. 1 to reach an accord. If none is found, the hemisphere's boldest stadium will be built just north of the team's current house.

[from occupied ga]

So your argument is that because some of the tx burden is shifted to out of towners, this is a good thing? If so I disagree. Taxes are never beneficial to anyone except the select few who are on the govt payroll or who can expect to get some of the pelf. Every dollar in hotel motel TAX that is collected from out of twoners is a dollar NOT spent in some local merchant's store. COnventioneers don't come with an infinite supply of money, the come with limited means just like anyone else, and when they have to disgorge for some egregious 10% tax, the that same money is gone from the pool of available funds.

Also remember that convention planners shop competitively, and cost is definitely a factor. Adding a local extortion to the hotel charge will lead convention planners to shop around for the most competitive overall rate and that might not be ATlanta.

Therefore the taxpayers of Georgia are not directly being impacted because the City of Atlanta decides what purposes the revenues from this hotel-motel tax are being used for.

$200m could have been used to shift the property tax burden from the Atl residents for things like water system improvements, etc. But it isn't It's being spent to make Arthur Blank richer. No way is this new stadium anything but a rip off.

I've been living near Atlnta for 35 years, and I have yet to see the slightest benefit from the current stadium. I expect to see the same from the new one. As far as I'm concerned let Blank and his entertainment squad go someplace else. No loss.

[Hotlanta Mike]

You make the assumption that people arriving on convention business are paying for their accommodations out of their own pockets. A majority of this is business related, which is covered by the companies that sent these people.

Secondly, staying in any large city in the US (NYC, SFO, etc) I can assure you that there will be a number of taxes/fees on the hotel bill that travelers have to pay. That does not deter anyone from spending this dollar at a local venue if they have a desire to go to it.

[from occupied ga]

wrong and and half wrong

A majority of this is business related, which is covered by the companies that sent these people.

SO WHAT? You think companies have unlimited cash to spend? I work for a major corporation, and conference attendence is determined by relevance, how much it will cost and the available budget. number of taxes/fees on the hotel bill that travelers have to pay.

WHile this is true, the number of conference attendees at our company has dropped with people being forced to go on teleconference workshops etc.

Overall my statement stands there are no good taxes. All taxes take money from the voluntary economy and forcibly transfer wealth to those who havent earned it. Try reading bastiat's that which is seen and that which is not seen.