Arena works continues, behind closed doors

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BY DEENA WINTER / Lincoln Journal Star

Ever since that flurry of 2015 Vision “community conversations” about arenas and research corridors and skyscrapers earlier this year, talk of building a new arena seems to have subsided.

Far from subsiding, however, the conversation simply moved behind closed doors — which is where it began nearly three years ago.

But it’s no longer just a conversation; the 2015 group has pressed forward to make its ideas a reality through what it calls action teams.

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Plans for building a sports and entertainment arena in downtown Lincoln could call for relocating the city's main post office and Burlington Northern & Santa Fe railroad tracks. (LJS file)

Plans for building a sports and entertainment arena in downtown Lincoln could call for relocating the city's main post office and Burlington Northern & Santa Fe railroad tracks. (LJS file)

Their existence hasn’t been publicized, and you won’t find a meeting schedule on 2015 Vision’s Web site. But the groups are meeting regularly and doing more than talking.

Eighteen community leaders — chosen by 2015 Vision leaders, former Mayor Coleen Seng and others — are serving on an arena team that has been meeting since late March and expects to work for up to two years.

The team has been chaired by former state Sen. David Landis (recently named urban development director), chamber President Wendy Birdsall and Seng. New Mayor Chris Beutler will likely take over Seng’s position.

The committee is working to develop a 15,000-seat arena, convention center, hotel, retail, office space and residential units west of the Haymarket. The cost is now estimated at $244 million, give or take $50 million.

According to the committee’s documents, it is not just a planning or advisory board, but is charged with making the arena a reality, if all goes as planned.

And planning has moved beyond the talking stage.

So far, the city has:

* Penciled in $4 million for parking garages in Antelope Valley and near the proposed arena in 2009-2010, and $1.3 million for arena studies, designs and land purchases in 2008-2009 in the city’s draft Capital Improvement Plan.

* Issued a request for proposals and selected a company to do a blight study of 400 acres where the arena would be built, extending from Haymarket Park to about L Street. The study is expected to be done next month. Declaring an area blighted opens the door to the use of tax increment financing, as well as eminent domain.

* Started analyzing wetlands and soil in the target area.

* Started an environmental assessment, which is expected to take months. There are two wetlands areas to the west of the proposed site.

* Decided to hire a professional archeologist to study the area’s historic, cultural and archeological sites and structures.

* Moved in the direction of making the arena a green, LEED-certified (eco-friendly) building, a rarity in the arena industry.

* Initiated discussions about getting cheaper energy from the District Energy Corp., a venture of the city, county and Lincoln Electric System established to provide low-cost thermal energy to the city-county building. The DEC provides heating and cooling to several downtown government buildings.

* Talked about a public vote on financing the project and creating an authority to oversee construction. That likely wouldn’t happen until next year.

But there are plenty of hurdles.

One of them: The target area is in Salt Creek’s 100-year floodplain — meaning there’s a 1 percent chance of major flooding in any given year. So the buildings would have to be designed to meet the city’s floodplain standards.

“It is a messy kind of jigsaw puzzle, moving things around,” said Assistant Planning Director Kent Morgan, on deciding where buildings should be. “Clearly we have some floodplain challenges here.”

The area is also in the airport’s flight path, and while the arena likely would fall below the limit, a permit may have to be obtained from the Federal Aviation Administration for the hotel. Morgan said the city has started talks with the Lincoln Airport Authority.

Lincoln officials have been getting seasoned advice from Stan Meradith, principal architect with DLR Group, the Omaha firm that designed the Qwest Center. Meradith has been working with the city, for free, for about two and a half years now.

His company has come up with a rendering of what the arena could look like: The up-to-130-foot-tall arena would use the Lincoln Station as an entrance, and the rest of the building would be modeled after the railroad station’s historic, red brick design.

Meradith said the area could have the feel of LoDo, Denver’s hip lower downtown historic district.

The group has also gotten words of wisdom from Ken Bunger, who was Omaha’s city attorney when the Qwest Center was developed and built. He said Lincoln was in about the same position Omaha was in a decade ago, when city officials were in the planning stages.

Three years later, Omaha officials had a plan, $75 million in private money and a $198 million bond issue approved by voters.

Bunger told the committee Omaha’s arena is exceeding expectations, but its convention center isn’t performing as well as hoped. He blamed national trends, Sept. 11 and gas prices.

If all goes according to the action team’s plans, all this talk of building an arena could move out of conference rooms and into governmental public hearings soon.

A redevelopment plan for the area could be before the planning commission by late August and the City Council in late September.

That will be an opportunity for the public to weigh in, as talk turns to action.

Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com.