Lincoln Arena and Convention Center

BY DEENA WINTER / Lincoln Journal Star
Wednesday, Sep 03, 2008 - 08:55:27 pm CDT

Tom Osborne said the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has reached a tentative agreement with city officials on having its basketball teams be tenants if the city builds a new arena.

The agreement “would be beneficial to both,” Osborne said Wednesday at an arena open house at Memorial Stadium. “Unless things have changed, we’re OK with what they’ve offered us. ... We think we can work it out.”

He would not elaborate on the terms of the proposed agreement.

By the Lincoln Journal Star
Monday, Apr 14, 2008

Gov. Dave Heineman has signed a bill expected to return about $700,000 a year in state sales tax revenues for the city’s proposed arena project.

The bill (LB912) allows Lincoln to use 70 percent of the sales tax generated by a new arena, convention center and nearby hotels to pay for streets, sewers and street lights needed for the project.

The bill was designated a priority bill by Sen. Bill Avery of Lincoln. City officials estimate that Lincoln would receive $654,000 a year under the system, which would include sales tax money from a possible new hotel and the existing Holiday Inn at Ninth and P streets.

Lincoln Journal Star
Saturday, Mar 08, 2008

A bill that would allow Lincoln to set up a new system to finance improvements for a new arena has received a gratifying amount of support from Omaha and other Nebraska communities.

The bill, designated a priority bill by Sen. Bill Avery of Lincoln, won 27-5 first-round approval and passed second round on a voice vote. Passage seems assured.

BY DEENA WINTER / Lincoln Journal Star
Tuesday, Mar 04, 2008

Six months of research into the viability of a new arena in Lincoln resulted in this conclusion by a consultant: It’s financially feasible and needed.

John Kaatz of Convention, Sports & Leisure, which is based in Minnesota, told an arena study group Tuesday that only 17 percent of national touring events can squeeze into the city’s outdated, 50-year-old Pershing Center. And so the city is missing out on a “a tremendous amount of market,” he said.

His company interviewed about a dozen event promoters, and there was a lot of interest in booking more Lincoln events, Kaatz said. Most of them said they’d prefer to see an arena with at least 11,000 seats, with the flexibility to do smaller events.

Kaatz recommends the city build a 13,000- to 16,000-seat arena with 600 club seats and 20 suites — if the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s basketball team is a tenant. An amendment limiting Lincoln’s arena to 16,000 seats was recently tacked onto a bill in the Legislature that would help Lincoln finance an arena.

Lincoln Journal Star
Sunday, Feb 24, 2008

Maybe I’m just hearing what I want to hear.

Talking with Tom Osborne on Saturday, I swear I heard the sound of progress for Lincoln, or at least the increasing potential for progress. In Osborne’s comments, I detected the sound of steps toward NU ultimately supporting a proposed arena-convention center west of the downtown Haymarket area.

Granted, this project is nowhere near fruition. For one thing, a public vote is a year away. Plenty of questions — financial feasibility, for instance — remain.

Osborne last month said he was unsure if the project was economically viable for the university. But his stance has shifted.

By NANCY HICKS / Lincoln Journal Star
Thursday, Feb 14, 2008

Lincoln leaders would get help paying for streets, sewers and street lights associated with building a new convention center and arena through a bill that moved out of the Legislature’s Revenue Committee on Thursday.

The bill (LB912), sponsored by Lincoln Sen. Bill Avery, would allow Lincoln to use a portion of the state sales tax revenue generated by the convention center, arena and nearby hotels to help pay off bonds related to the project.

BY DEENA WINTER / Lincoln Journal Star
Thursday, Jan 10, 2008 - 12:11:57 pm CST

New tools to finance a new arena and roads top Mayor Chris Beutler’s goals for the 2008 Legislature.

Beutler is no longer a lawmaker, but he still has an agenda he hopes to push through the session that began this week.

He was flanked at a press conference by Lincoln Senator Bill Avery, who will soon introduce a bill creating a financing mechanism to help pay for a new arena in Lincoln. Avery’s legislation would amend the law that helped Omaha pay off its Qwest Center by allowing the city to keep 70 percent of the state sales taxes collected at the convention center, arena and an adjoining hotel. The remaining 30 percent went into a fund to help other Nebraska cities build or renovate cultural attractions and other facilities.