Sacramento city officials today unveiled a still-evolving arena-financing plan that relies on everything from ticket surcharges to a quasi-privatization of city-owned downtown parking spaces.

The so-called "Nexus Report" is sketchy in many respects. It doesn't specify how much money officials expect to raise from each funding source - including the anchor tenant, the Sacramento Kings. That and many other financial others are to be negotiated over the next few months.

But the much-anticipated report, months in the making, is seen by Mayor Kevin Johnson and his Think Big Sacramento task force as a key step in the quest for a new downtown arena. A finalized package must be in place by next spring or the Kings' owners say they will seek NBA permission to move the team out of town.

The report was unveiled at the Sacramento Press Club by a contingent including Johnson; task force co-chairs Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Sen. Ted Gaines of Roseville; City Councilman Rob Fong; task force director Chris Lehane; and Daniel Barrett, a stadium-finance consultant from Southern California.

While many details remain to be worked out, the report does make clear what Johnson and other arena promoters have been saying for months: Voters won't be asked to approve a broad-based sales tax increase to finance the $387 million facility. An arena plan in 2006 based on a sales tax hike failed miserably at the ballot box.

Instead, the project will lean on a hodgepodge of revenue streams that have a connection, or nexus, to the arena. Surcharges on tickets and concessions could raise millions of dollars a year toward debt payments. Hotels and other businesses in the vicinity of the arena might be asked to "tax" themselves.

Some ideas could prove controversial. For instance, the City Council is likely to be asked to earmark about $2 million a year from the existing, city-wide hotel tax to the arena. The task force also wants the city to sell off five different land parcels, including the real estate at Power Balance Pavilion in Natomas, to generate up to $60 million in upfront cash.

Both ideas might run into resistance because of tight city budgets.

Another X factor is the Kings themselves. Task force officials have indicated they want the Kings to enter into a lease comparable to the deal the team struck in their aborted attempt to relocate to Anaheim. In that deal, the Kings would have paid 7.5 percent of their ticket revenue in rent. But it's not clear how much the Kings, whose owners have run into financial problems in recent years, are prepared to pay to move into a new Sacramento arena.

The Think Big report also glides over the existing $67 million debt the team owes to the city, calling it a "significant issue that must be addressed."

The plan could rely heavily on the 7,000 or so city-owned parking places downtown. Task force officials propose leasing the spaces to private operators in return for a big upfront fee, perhaps in the tens of millions of dollars.

A similar plan met with mixed results in Chicago, where the city leased 36,000 meters to a private company in 2008. The deal raised $1.16 billion in immediate cash but turned into a political debacle when the private company raised meter rates dramatically. The city's inspector general later said the meters were worth at least $2.1 billion.

In addition, the arena could seek investment dollars from foreign nationals under a federal program known as EB-5. That somewhat controversial program offers green cards and a path to citizenship to foreign nationals who invest at least $500,000 into U.S. businesses that create at least 10 jobs. The program has helped create jobs at the former McClellan Air Force Base in North Highlands.

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