A much-needed round of perspective and context suddenly, refreshingly, is visiting all those wild attendance projections for next week’s NFL Draft in Pittsburgh.
While the official cheerleaders have been touting up to 700,000 attendees for the three-day event, more than a few astute observes note that the 700,000 number (or whatever number is bandied about) does not represent “unique individuals.”
As one Post-Gazette reader reminds, “a single person going all three days counts as three people to the NFL.” And, of course, each city will claim to outdo the previous one for attendance and “economic impact,” the reader adds, both of which typically are inflated.
Event organizers have commissioned their own impact study to be released after the NFL Draft. But what’s sorely needed is an independent accounting to restore sanity to all the hyped attendance and benefits claims.
We’re getting the distinct impression that a Downtown “transit revitalization investment district,” or TRID, could be the latest in a long line of gussied-up pigs.
The Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh has approved creation of the TRID. Respective taxing bodies – the city, county and Pittsburgh Public Schools (whose budgets already are being squeezed) — must sign off on the plan to make it operational.
As the P-G reports it:
“TRID zones are typically formed around transit stops, where property tax revenue generated from construction — of new or renovated buildings, for instance — is earmarked for specific projects. …
“Under the new guidelines, the taxing bodies would set aside three-quarters of all increased tax revenue gained from new development within a region that covers much of Downtown, portions of the North Shore and a section of the Strip District.
As the P-G also notes:
“To get projects past the goalpost, the URA has stepped in, doling out grants and loans through new programs designed to support developers. But funding is quickly running dry.”
The TRID “money would be earmarked for investment in the heart of Downtown and could support anything from upgraded infrastructure to new housing and public space improvements — or projects that ‘we’re simply not going to be able to do’ without more money, [URA board Chairman Yarone] Zober said.”
We inject a big “Uh-oh” to that last point.
“Buildings are currently vacant that shouldn’t be,” Zober said. “There are a number of them that folks wish they could convert to something else, but there’s always a funding gap.”
“Funding gap” is the new euphemism for could not get a bank loan.
Mind you, Zober’s reference is to private, and very expensive, building conversions for which the converters have not been able to secure financing. Because, class, they are not cost-effective.
So, taxpayers should be forced to pick up part of the tab? Sorry, but no.
As one wag with whom we regularly converse wryly quipped: “The answer to bad socialist policies is more socialism” from this crowd.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
