So the latest version of the proposal to bring the Knight Uptown doesn’t include any property tax money but rather more hotel/motel tax money plus some bucks from the Center City Partners, providing a political fig leaf to those on city council that want to vote for it but are afraid to because of the property tax aspect.
Yawn. Money is a fungible asset — as this deal proves yet again. And increasingly people are catching on to that — it’s not as if we haven’t heard that line before. (See: arena bundle.)
And none of this gets around the fundamental problem — we’re giving public money to move within the Charlotte metro area something that competes with other unsubsidized business for scarce entertainment dollars and does nothing to help the local economy as a whole. And the hard questions still haven’t been asked — like what happens if the Knights don’t hit their attendance projections.
