New stadium for Cards in Arizona a mirage
By Rob Miech
SportsLine Staff Writer
Almost a year of planning, forecasting and squabbling, along with plans for a new football stadium for the Arizona Cardinals evaporated on Tuesday in the Valley of the Sun.
The Coyotes' future looks bright, as most of the 33 Scottsdale precincts reported at 9:15 p.m. (PT) that 63 percent of its residents had voted for a new $140 million hockey complex, to be built with no public money, in the Los Arcos section of the city.
The Cardinals, however, might be setting their sights on a new city within the next few years after voters in Mesa extinguished a proposed stadium project by a vote of about 32,000 to 22,000. It passed in Gilbert, but Queen Creek residents shot it down 208 to 205.
It turned out to be inconsequential, but 40 of 43 Mesa precincts reported the quarter-cent tax levy was being defeated 59 percent to 41.
IF THERE'S ANY TIME THE franchise needed the last-minute, divine intervention that has so often visited young quarterback Jake Plummer, Tuesday was it.
A sports radio talk show railed Tuesday against what it called the "geezer patrol," older residents in the area who reportedly turned out in droves to shoot down the project.
Some faction even came up with a telemarketing scam Monday, which spread the false rumor that each resident would lose about $500 (a grossly exaggerated figure) a year to the Rio Salado Crossing project. The Cardinals themselves even drew some fury by proponents for their nearly non-existent advertisement of the critical vote.
It was speculated only about 17 percent of the area's registered voters would hit the booths, but that was pumped to more than 30 percent by a widespread morning turnout.
TUESDAY, HOWEVER, THE ONLY NUMBERS that mattered were cast by the residents of the three cities, who voted on authorizing half of all state sales taxes collected within the proposed Rio Salado district to be used for the venture.
Furthermore, Mesa locals voted on the quarter-cent city sales tax to finance $385 million in bonds.
Even if the Rio Salado project was approved, safety valves were included in the deal that could have wiped it out. A majority of the seven-member Mesa City Council, most of whom have opposed Rio Salado, would have had to approve the plan if the voters passed it.
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| Jake Plummer's heroics weren't enough to land the Cardinals a new stadium.(Allsport) |
If that happened, fickle city council members might have followed the lead. Even then, without assurances that private money would be committed to the project, not one penny of sales tax would have been collected. And that would have killed the issuance of the bonds.
Marriott International officials had considered constructing one of the two hotels on the site, but downtown Phoenix wooed that corporation in a major deal last week, precluding it from involving itself in another deal in the area.
Movers and shakers of the Rio Salado project weren't fazed by Marriott's move because Loews Hotels, Starwood Hotels and Resorts -- the parent corporation of the Westin and Sheraton chains -- and two other hotel firms were interested in making a deal. Those would have been part of the 13,000 jobs that Rio Salado would have created.
WAYNE BROWN, THE MAYOR of Mesa, didn't think the prospect of a new stadium for the Cardinals would be an issue last fall, when he said the project would be "a cinch" if the team qualified for the playoffs and then won a postseason game.
The Cards went out and defeated the San Diego Chargers in overtime in the regular-season finale to make the playoffs, and then advanced by defeating the Cowboys in Dallas.
That battle in Big D proved far easier than the political game of football that ensued when the Rio Salado Crossing stadium complex was first unveiled 11 months ago.
Unless a Dewey-defeats-Truman scenario materialized late Tuesday night or early Wednesday, Brown has learned how quickly a cinch can turn into a pinch. And fans of the Cardinals might soon need to get accustomed to watching NFL games on television instead of at Sun Devil Stadium.
IF THE NEW ARENAS HAD passed muster with the locals, the Phoenix area would have joined an exclusive group of metropolitan areas in the country that house their four major sports teams in different complexes.
Next spring, only Detroit and the San Francisco Bay Area, whose Giants will move into Pacific Bell Park, will be able to boast of that luxury. Minneapolis-St. Paul and South Florida will make that short list if the baseball Twins and Marlins, respectively, relocate to baseball-only stadiums.
When the Cardinals kick off their 1999 season on Monday, Sept. 27, against the San Francisco 49ers in Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, they will be the only team from the four main professional leagues that plays its games in a collegiate stadium.
Because of Tuesday's votes, that will continue.
THE COST OF THE Rio Salado Crossing project was estimated at $1.8 billion, which included an exposition and convention center, two major hotels, enough area for a residential community of 8,000, almost a million square feet for retail business and 2 million square feet of office space.
NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue already had tabbed the 2004 Super Bowl for the state-of-the-art, 67,000-seat football stadium. Analysts said that would have generated $266 million. But Phoenix-area sports fans can now make other plans for late January that year.
The complex was projected to generate $1.2 billion of economic activity yearly, creating $700 million in new state tax revenues in its first 20 years and $9 million annually for district schools.
The football stadium portion of the massive structure would lay under a retractable roof that would have roughly been the width and length of the field, and huge doors at the northwest end of the field could have been opened for a majestic view of Camelback Mountain.
In addition, motors and casters would have enabled the entire field to be moved into an outdoor amphitheater.
NOW, IT'S LIKELY THE Cardinals themselves will probably be the ones who move, just when it appears they've turned the direction of the franchise around. Insiders predict team president Bill Bidwill will relocate the Cardinals within two or three years.
Bidwill won't sell, they say. So Houston billionaire Robert McNair might as well focus his energies, and dollars, on yanking the Saints out of New Orleans if Los Angeles somehow gets its act together and lands the NFL's 32nd team.
As for Phoenix, an unusual chance to become one of the country's premier sports centers most likely disappeared like a mirage. This summer promises to be a hot one.
The mayor of Mesa can already feel the heat.
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