The funding and building of the RBC Center was controversial in Raleigh, and now Mayor Charles Meeker is looking ahead to a possible replacement facility. In his Daily Journal, Locke Foundation president John Hood takes a look at what may be coming. Will Raleigh follow Charlotte’s path?
By 2019, the construction bonds for the RBC Center will be paid off. Supporters of the existing arena want local officials to keep funneling the hotel and meals tax revenue to them for maintaining and improving the facility. Meeker and others would rather reroute the money to new facilities, such as Meeker’s downtown arena idea.
Truthfully, I’d rather see the tax go away as soon as possible. The next best thing, however, would be to maintain the asset taxpayers have already been compelled to finance, the RBC Center. The worst possible option is the one Meeker seeks. One need look no further than the experience of Charlotte, where taxpayers were compelled to build a coliseum on the west side of town for the Charlotte Hornets, and then two decades later were compelled to finance an uptown arena for the Charlotte Bobcats – with the previous coliseum being demolished.
The mayor of Raleigh apparently sees this as a success story to be emulated, rather than as a debacle that continues to embarrass and anger Charlotte taxpayers.
Will Raleigh do this a second time? As my childhood friend loved to say: Let’s not and just say we did.
