The Event Center that will not Die

It is difficult for me to understand exactly why many Albuquerque city council members continue to insist on building a new Downtown event center. In his first State of the City address, Mayor Richard Berry made the following statement:

I'm not saying 'no, never.' I'm saying now isn't the time

This simple statement is a practical way to look at the proposed event center. It may one day become a reality but now really isn’t the right time. A new event center in downtown Albuquerque is estimated to cost nearly 400 million dollars, where exactly is that money supposed to come from? Accompanying the mayor’s position statement was news that city owes nearly 20 million dollars on renovations made more than a decade ago to the existing convention center. Where is that money and when is the existing convention center, operating at less than capacity going to come from?

One of the arguments in favor of the new event center is the construction jobs that will ostensively add to the city’s labor base, stimulating the economy. There are a lot of problems with this position. First, these jobs would only be temporary. One of the ill effects could be an artificial inflation in the city’s construction labor base; companies may bring in workers from other economies that leave after the work is complete or may have to lay off many local employees once the work is complete. This is an example of unsustainable. The city may as well employ a hundred hole diggers and a hundred hole fillers working on a split shift in perpetuity.

Another argument is that an event center will lead to a revitalization of the city’s downtown area. The first step to any city revitalization is taking care of crime. Albuquerque already has a modern convention center with much useful space that is across the street from a mostly empty beautiful civic plaza, why would another event center do any better? Part of the event center plan involves a hotel. There are already many hotels in downtown Albuquerque with much vacancy. What reason is there and do we really want the city to get into the hotel business? The city does not need to enter any private industry and should first concentrate on finding tenants for existing city properties and take care of crime on those properties and throughout the city.

The most laughable reason given for an event center is the idea that the city could conceivably attract a professional sports team, most likely an NBA team. Put simply, Albuquerque does not have the population base necessary to support a professional basketball team. Second, smaller cities with NBA teams are bankrupt thanks to those teams. I doubt the NBA would support a team moving to Albuquerque because of woeful attendance at the area’s NBA developmental league team’s games. There are sentimental reasons for this, making it a point of civic pride to call Albuquerque a major city because it’s a budget busting NBA team’s city. It isn’t worth it.

I just don’t get it. Any reason that can be given for the city to create a new event center when one already exists and many other venues dot the metro area can be easily refuted. Now is simply not the time to even consider this idea. Over the last few years Albuquerque has lost several major private sector employers. The city should concentrate its efforts on making the city safer which will help make it a city people want to move to and encourage businesses to move here by improving taxes for them. This event center is a distraction. Any city councilor who supports it can’t be bothered to solve actual problems and are probably running for mayor in three years.