The Pittsburgh Steelers say they’ve officially submitted a bid to host the National Football League draft either 2026 or 2027.
And they marked the occasion with a short, detail-bereft video posted to social media, tagging Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, Allegheny County Chief Executive Sara Innamorato and VisitPittsburgh, the region’s tourism bureau.
Well, rah-rah-sis-boom-bah and all that.
No details of the bid were released, of course. Shhhhh! Secret! That kind of information apparently is considered proprietary, given Pittsburgh will be competing with a number of other cities for the draft circus.
And while chamber of commerce types keep touting the millions of dollars that hosting such an event supposedly will bring to Pittsburgh, mum continues to be the word on how deep the Steelers expect our “leaders” to dive into taxpayer pockets to help support this event.
It’s a horribly improper use of public dollars. As noted previously, since when should the NFL’s player development operation be underwritten by taxpayers?
That said, win or lose the hosting competition, how much public money was pledged or will be involved must be made public. And should city, county or tourism officials still refuse to make public their abuse of the public kitty, a lawsuit should be filed to rattle the spendthrift’s cages and force complete public disclosure.
But past being prologue, these cats will go to any length to keep such a taxpayer shakedown under wraps.
Local, state and federal authorities have pledged millions of dollars to help distressed office tower owners in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and other Pennsylvania cities convert office space into residential units.
Building owners have whined and wailed that they need such help because the conversions, in most cases, are not cost-effective. As we’ve noted many times before, forcing taxpayers to cover such costs won’t change the not-feasible bottom line.
In some cases, high-rise owners say the conversions are necessary to prevent them from defaulting on their loans. It’s a situation brought about by the pandemic, in which remote work, thought to be a temporary phenomenon, continues to have staying power.
But it turns out, a bona fide market-based solution has emerged, as reported by The Wall Street Journal’s Peter Grant.
“Turmoil in commercial real estate is sending jitters through regional banks and other lenders. But one group is pleased with the turbulence: investors sitting on piles of cash they raised to scoop up distressed properties.
“Many of these investors have been stockpiling funds since early in the pandemic. They have been frustrated because most property owners haven’t agreed to sell at big-enough markdowns, in large part because lenders have been willing to offer loan extensions and modifications.”
But Grant reports that’s starting to change.
“Lenders are stepping up the pressure on owners of office buildings crippled by remote work. They are getting tougher on hotel owners who have neglected repairs. They are calling in loans to apartment-building owners who fell behind on construction schedules owing to supply-chain shortages,” he says.
As Grant further notes, “Property owners who used floating-rate debt or bought properties before the interest-rate shock began in 2022 are struggling to afford higher debt-service costs, which often are more than 4 percentage points higher.
“Investors with cash on hand have begun to snap up these properties or provide rescue capital to struggling owners in exchange for preferred returns,” Grant finds.
Funny, how the market works that way, right? But it’s not a laughing matter that government interventionists continue to be hell-bent on using taxpayer dollars to “rescue” such owners and their buildings, which, of course, works to undermine the kind of market-based solution that now has emerged.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
