Saturday, June 26, 2010

Arena Land Swap Under Study

As reported by the Sacramento Business Journal, Cal Expo leaders agreed Friday to study whether the three-way land swap proposal for an arena would work for the state fairgrounds financially and physically.

The Cal Expo Board of Directors accept the so-called evaluation agreement with Sacramento Convergence LLC, a group led by Sacramento developers Gerry Kamilos and David Taylor. The board also agreed on a timeline for Convergence to pay Cal Expo about $120,000 for the consultants who will study the plan for Cal Expo, said Brian May, Cal Expo assistant general manager.

In the agreement is to study and evaluate” the proposal to determine whether it “will provide the state with the highest and most certain return for the sale of its property and is in Cal Expo’s best interest, provided that the study and evaluation are at no cost to Cal Expo.”

The Kamilos plan would sell the Cal Expo site to Convergence, transfer the city of Sacramento’s North Natomas property to the state for the future location of the state fair, and develop a sports and entertainment complex on city-owned land at the intermodal site next to the downtown railyard.

The Sacramento City Council entered into exclusive negotiations with the developers in late April, agreeing to a four-month exclusive negotiating period.

The developers envision that the new home of the Sacramento Kings would open in June 2014.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

The family who donated the land to the state in the first place must be enraged by this whole idea. It was intended as a state fairgrounds, not a way to make developers and politicans fatter.

Zwahlen Images said...

I have not found any info about donating the land; I have read from several sources that in 1948 the state purchased 1,000 acres of land along the American River north of downtown Sacramento. Funds were not allocated to begin construction on this land until 1963, and the Fair continued at the Stockton Boulevard grounds until 1967. In 1968 Governor Ronald Reagan opened the Fair at the "Cal Expo" site, which covers over 350 acres.

This is according to Wikipedia and the CalExpo website.