Arena talks OK'd

It didn't take much time or discussion Friday for the Cal Expo board to bless the idea of opening talks with the NBA over putting a new arena at the state fairgrounds.

Before the unanimous vote, members said the decision was easy, and that an urban development anchored by an arena could be the answer to the cash-strapped Cal Expo's long quest for more money to modernize the fairgrounds.

"I don't think we can do anything but agree to go forward and look at it," said board member Gilbert Albiani, a Realtor from Elk Grove.

Now comes the hard part.

In the months ahead, representatives of Cal Expo and the National Basketball Association will try to do the seemingly impossible: come up with a plan to build a new Kings arena without imposing any new taxes on the public.

The idea is to lease some of state-owned Cal Expo's 360-acre gold mine of underused land to a developer for building stores, offices and homes. NBA and Cal Expo officials hope such a development could produce enough money to both fund an arena as well as refurbish the fairgrounds. The price tag could easily top $650 million.

Cal Expo doesn't receive any subsidy from the state.

"Now is the time we roll up our sleeves and get to work," said NBA consultant John Moag.

The NBA also will have to address what should be done with the current Arco Arena site in North Natomas, and the 185 acres surrounding it that is owned by the Maloofs, the Kings' owners, and by the city of Sacramento. That land will likely be slated for urban development as well as to help pay for the arena, Moag said.

The need to cobble together the maximum amount of land for a potentially money-making redevelopment led the NBA to Cal Expo, and away from the smaller North Natomas property, he said.

"In the absence of tax dollars, what we had to do was focus on the assets available to us," he said. "Natomas alone simply didn't cut the mustard. It wasn't enough (land)."

Besides authorizing talks, the Cal Expo board authorized its staff to hire any consultants needed to negotiate with the NBA in New York, and put together an economic analysis.

Board member Rex Hime of Loomis, who made the motion, said consultants were needed to "ensure that us West Coasters have as much smarts as those East Coasters." Hime is the president and chief executive officer of the California Business Properties Association, which represents California's commercial real estate industry.

Hime and board member Marko Mlikotin, a public relations executive from Folsom, will be representing the board in the negotiations, which are expected to start immediately.

Moag acknowledged that he would have to sell the Sacramento public on the Cal Expo plan, even though its approval would require no public vote. That can't happen until the plan is nailed down and put on paper for people to see, he said.

"If the public isn't on board with this project, then ultimately it fails," he said. "It's pretty hard to sell somebody on a concept when they can't visualize it."

Members of the Maloof family did not attend the board meeting. Moag said he isn't talking to the team owners directly, but NBA Commissioner David Stern is giving them regular updates. The family asked Stern to intervene after previous arena efforts failed.

Moag said the NBA is pinning its hopes on Cal Expo as the best alternative for getting a new arena built in Sacramento.

"There's no Plan B on the table," he said. "This is something we're totally focused on, and I think it's realistic."

In addition to figuring out how to finance an arena, Moag acknowledged that there are other significant issues to tackle, including traffic. There have been "informal discussions" with Caltrans, he said, but it is "a bit premature" to come up with specific ideas to alleviate the traffic bottleneck on the Capital City Freeway alongside Cal Expo.

Even as board members enthusiastically endorsed the idea of talks, ex-officio member Assemblyman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento, a key opponent of past arena deals that involved public financing, raised concerns.

About the writer:

• The Bee's Mary Lynne Vellinga can be reached at (916) 321-1094 or mlvellinga@sacbee.com.