Greensboro city council approves plan to reduce coliseum energy costs. Hoggard’s down with it.
After watching this whole Winston-Salem stadium deal play out, I’m wary of cities borrowing against projected savings and revenues, even when developers and contractors say they’ll make up the difference in case of a shortfall. I’m sure they honestly intend to do so. But the future is just too hard to predict.
Since I don’t know everything, I’ll defer to JLF’s Chad Adams:
This is an interesting story with no new costs and no real savings. BUT, it is nice to see attempts being made to minimize future energy costs. The coliseum has been and will continue to operate at a loss to the city. The real question is whether the city should be in the coliseum business. The Chamber and others will always answer “yes” and support that with the “impact on the surrounding community” argument.
Greensboro is to be commended for at least looking for ways to minimize the costs, but wouldn’t it be nice if the private sector were to purchase the coliseum and remove the loss from the books for the city and then make it taxable property thereby making it a profit center?
