City Council agrees to Arena Financing Plan

In a 7-2 vote, the council approved a nonbinding "term sheet" with the Sacramento Kings, AEG and the development firm slated to build the project. By approving the plan, the council has set into motion a series of critical votes in the coming months. Those votes must occur under a tight timeline, as the city works toward breaking ground on the arena by next summer to open the facility for the 2015-16 NBA season.

Now the Kings and AEG will begin work on a memorandum of understanding on revenue sharing and arena expenses. That agreement is scheduled to be completed by April 15. In addition, the city has looked at leasing parking assets to a private firm in exchange for an upfront payment that would go toward the arena. In recent weeks, city officials have floated another idea: to create a municipal finance authority that would allow the city to maintain control of its parking operations. Under that plan, the city would issue bonds to fund the arena project and pay that debt back through parking revenue

Last night’s vote by the council also approved the spending of $850,000from the city's parking fund to hire a team of consultants to help in the pre-development process.