Broomfield’s 1stBank Center has come up a lot in reference to Cascadia/West Greeley/Catalyst/Catheter (I made one of those up, see if you can guess which one!) because, eerily similar to Cascadia, 1stBank Center was an expensive, city-owned arena, set to host a minor league hockey team, and it’s currently being demolished after never being profitable.
I emailed Broomfield’s City Council to see if I could get some advice from someone who had been there. And in less than 24 hours, I got one very candid response:
“(1stBank Center) was approved over 20 years ago before any of the current council members (were) in office. Our role was to stop the bleeding as there was no prospect of it being able to just break even and it had substantial maintenance needs.
“In answer to your question, I have not been contacted by anyone in Greeley. I am somewhat aware of the project there involving a hockey team.
“As you likely know, the FirstBank Center from day 1 never, ever came even close to meeting its expectations. Competing venues like the new Mission Ballroom in Denver completely drained away its last remaining shows.
“Notably, we are in the process of developing nearby a downtown destination, Broomfield Town Center, which would feature a lake surrounded by residential high-rises and ground floor retail and a community festival and market space, all located next to our library/auditorium, community center and outdoor pool complex.
“The difference between it and FirstBank is that Broomfield owned FirstBank and took on all the risk, and with Town Center we are providing land and tax incentives to the developer but will not own the whole development.”
Big takeaways:
• It took 20 money-loss, taxpayer-subsidized years for Broomfield to manage to stop bleeding money into 1stBank Center.
• It “never, ever came close to meeting its expectations.” Even a small, 5% shortfall in Cascadia’s projected success will cost you millions. “Never, ever came close” is probably quite a ways from only being 5% off the mark.
• Broomfield’s new project is taking a very different direction from Greeley’s: The developer is taking the risk, not the city, and it’s being built where there are already-thriving things like their library, community center, pool, and parks.
• Nobody from Greeley reached out to anyone in Broomfield (to this councilmember’s knowledge) to even ask simple questions.
This is the response I got by firing off a five-minute email. I’m just “some guy,” and I still got some pretty alarming answers, inside of a day, by asking super basic questions.
Why hasn’t anyone from the city of Greeley, someone from the council, the city manager, anyone, before pushing this project or voting yes on this, taken this step?
Even if you love the project, even if you were a council member planning to vote yes, wouldn’t you at least ask them some questions? Wouldn’t you want to know how you might at least reduce the risks or potentially save some money?
By the by, even a 1% savings comes out to $10 million.
Wouldn’t you send a quick email if it meant you might save millions?
Yes, you would. But your city council member wouldn’t. Or: They didn’t.
Why is that?
Could be laziness. Could be they don’t care about how hard you work for your money and how much it means to you that they spend it wisely. Could be that they knew what Broomfield would say and didn’t want to hear it.
Could be a lot of things. I encourage you to ask.
Peter Derk is a Greeley resident.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Opinion: Peter Derk: I emailed the Broomfield City Council to ask about Greeley’s Cascadia )
Also on site :