For: Ron Nirenberg, Calgaard Distinguished Professor of Practice
Against: Christine Drennon, associate professor of sociology and anthropology
Where is the money coming from?
Nirenberg: “So there’s a number of funding mechanisms. I’ll tell you first, it is the PFC, the Project Finance Zone. It is a zone designated by the state legislature that San Antonio had not previously been part of. Other cities like Houston and Fort Worth have used it. So that’s the first significant portion of revenue. Another portion of revenue is what’s on the ballot next week, which is the venue tax. And the other element of it, the other major element, is the TIRZ [Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone]. It’s a tax increment reinvestment zone. But in that area, designated TIRZ, from that base value, any growth would be captured and put directly back into that zone.”
Drennon: “There’s a new state designation, it’s called public facilities designation. What those kind of designations do is that they gather the taxes from this from a particular area and they allow you to reinvest it back into that area. Another one is the TIRZ, which is the Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone. That’s another one that collects property taxes and reinvests it. But we also have to think, well, where would that money go otherwise? And often it would go into what we call the general fund, into the general budget that would be for projects in the city of San Antonio rather than just in that one little area.”
How are these costs justified?
Nirenberg: “There’s been a lot of controversy over economic impact statements. They are not used for budgeting purposes but for overall direction planning. These propositions are helping us to achieve the goals that we have had for our community for many, many years. It’s about the venues and the livability and the quality of life, the amenities of the city that we want to have. And so if we want to have that kind of quality of life in our city, is it worth us investing in that? I say yes. I also say yes, especially if the revenue used to pay for all these things is coming from the visitor industry, from people who come and stay at our city. So I view this as a win-win.”
Drennon: “The justification, I think, is coming from an assessment that was done. There’s been two assessments. They have done two of those, but both of them have severe conflicts of interest. The big one that the city supposedly did was done by a corporation that owns, that has partial ownership in the Spurs. So it’s in their best interest to see this thing be built. In that case, we didn’t do our homework or we didn’t do it well, if we’re going to do our homework, we should do a true economic impact assessment of a project like this one and get an outside objective source.”
How might this impact low-income residents of San Antonio?
Nirenberg: “First, we have to improve and maintain the infrastructure around neighborhoods. But this particular project and this particular concept is improving venues that are not going to directly displace anyone. This is not moving anyone. It’s not raising any homes. These properties are vacant and or blighted buildings that are going to be improved. Now, that doesn’t address the issue of indirect displacement. And so that’s where our housing strategy comes in. We’ve got to continue to make sure that we’re protecting residents who are on fixed income, seniors, disabled residents, etc. But there is no capital that’s going into projects that are going to directly displace anyone. We have to continue to make sure that we’re making the investments in communities to prevent the indirect displacement. There is no way to prevent property values from rising. But we’re leveraging every tool we have locally to ensure that we can continue to invest in our communities and protect people who are vulnerable to rising property values.”
Drennon: “That’s an interesting question because the site that they’re proposing, nobody lives on that site right now, right? Again, it’s underutilized. Now there are neighborhoods around there. There’s a neighborhood just to the south, and there’s neighborhoods to the east. The neighborhoods just to the south are gentrified. They will absolutely be impacted just by the rise in the numbers of people that are there and the traffic. So that’s one of the questions: If an area becomes desirable to a higher income bracket, will people be able to stay? All of those kinds of things are all funded through that general budget. So if our general budget is not accumulating the funds from this, instead they’re just being reinvested there. Then we do lose out. If we’re not benefiting from being Spurs ticket holders and we’re not going to conventions — which most of us don’t go to conventions in our own city — we’re not going to see the benefits from this thing. Those folks are.”
Why might people be against Project Marvel?
Nirenberg: “I’ve seen a lot of misinformation out there. First, the notion that this is coming out of people’s property taxes. It’s not. Over on the venue tax, it’s been said that, you know, it’s an opportunity cost. We can use these funds for other projects like housing, etc. We cannot. I’ve also seen that’s the main area of misinformation — the idea that somehow San Antonio residents are going to be on the hook for these costs — and that’s not accurate … Now, underneath all of that is frustration and cynicism and evidence of bad deals in the past. And I can totally understand that. There’s a long and unfortunate history of governments — local governments — getting involved in sports deals that are totally tilted in favor of private corporations that profit off of the public. That’s why we approached this with eyes wide open and didn’t want to do that again … But ultimately, getting this whole concept executed and delivering on the promises that have been made about elevating our downtown and finally bringing economic opportunity to the East side, we have to do those things. It will take years to restore faith. It will take years to restore that faith. And ultimately, only until the execution of these projects will that faith be restored.”
Why might people support Project Marvel?
Drennon: “They think that the Spurs are going to leave. Right? That’s the number one argument. The Spurs will leave San Antonio if we don’t build them a new stadium … The NBA has actually made it quite difficult for a team to leave. And we have some time. Their lease on the Frost Center doesn’t come up for another five or six years. So we have that time to negotiate with them and build a new stadium if it’s downtown, if it’s over there, wherever it is, but under much more favorable conditions to the city of San Antonio right now. The Spurs are a very, very wealthy corporation, as far as the percentage of their wealth, that they are willing to invest in this new development — compared to the percentage of wealth that other basketball teams or basketball corporations are investing in their cities — is minuscule. So that just tells me we haven’t negotiated well. Because the other cities are doing much better than we are, and we’re a lower-income city than they are. So if anything, we should be fighting even harder to get a better deal. ”
