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**Peja Vu** · 05-09-2008, 10:18 PM

Negotiators for the National Basketball Association and Cal Expo on Friday announced they'd reached an agreement to move forward jointly on a plan to build a Kings arena in the state fairgrounds.

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According to a letter of understanding, which still must be approved by the Cal Expo board of directors, the NBA would shoulder the majority of the costs over the next 180 days as the two parties work together on a development plan that would accommodate both an arena and a revamped fairgrounds.

The parties plan to ask developers to submit proposals for turning the 360-acre fairgrounds into a mixed-use and entertainment development.

Cal Expo's board is scheduled to consider the letter of understanding at its May 21 meeting. Both NBA Commissioner David Stern and former Gov. Pete Wilson, the lead negotiator for Cal Expo, plan to attend.

The Maloofs, who own the Kings, are scheduled to be briefed by phone on the progress next week, said spokeswoman Donna Lucas. "They continue to be very supportive and appreciative of the work the commissioner and the NBA have been doing on the issue," she said.

The agreement is not legally binding, but representatives of both the NBA and Cal Expo said it represents a significant step forward. They cautioned that major challenges lie ahead, however.

"We wouldn't be doing it if we didn't think there was a more than fair chance it could be done, but recognizing that it's not a slam dunk," Stern said Friday.

Negotiators for both sides said they were confident enough that they could come up with a mutually acceptable development proposal to move to the next step -- crafting an actual plan and finding a developer to design and build it.

Wilson said Friday that negotiations thus far have led him to be "optimistic that it may lead to something really important for the city, and the state and for basketball fans, and ultimately for the people who are the daily inhabitants ... of this development."

The goal is to attract a developer that can both build a 17,000- to 20,000-seat arena and revamp the tired fairgrounds -- without using taxpayer dollars.

"We're going to squeeze these numbers every way possible," Stern said in a telephone interview.

Such a development -- which could include retail, office or housing -- would have to produce enough profit to pay for the arena and fairgrounds update, two items that could easily cost $650 million, based on past estimates.

**Peja Vu** · 05-10-2008, 10:55 PM

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The Maloofs, who own the Kings, are scheduled to be briefed by phone next week on the progress of talks, said spokeswoman Donna Lucas. "They continue to be very supportive and appreciative of the work the commissioner and the NBA have been doing on the issue," she said.

Stern said in a phone interview Friday that the Maloofs, while not involved in the talks, have paid for expenses incurred by the NBA for consultants and studies, and will continue to do so.

"They've said, 'Do what it takes; spend what you need. Let's give everything we can to make this work in Sacramento,'" Stern said. "They couldn't be better. They want this to work."

Stern took over the arena effort in December 2006 after earlier attempts involving the Maloofs and city and county officials collapsed in bitterness and recrimination.

The Kings owners walked away from the last serious proposal to build a new arena, in 2006. That effort would have involved raising the sales tax countywide to pay for an arena in the shuttered downtown railyard. Without the Maloofs' support, voters trounced the plan.

The agreement announced Friday is not legally binding, but representatives of both the NBA and Cal Expo said it represents a significant step forward. They also cautioned that major challenges lie ahead.

"We wouldn't be doing it if we didn't think there was a more than fair chance it could be done, but recognizing that it's not a slam dunk," Stern said.

http://www.sacbee.com/kings/story/927814.html

**Peja Vu** · 05-11-2008, 04:14 PM

Arena plan excites officials, fans at crumbling Cal Expo

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The water pipes at Cal Expo are deteriorating. The sewer system is outdated. Fewer people are showing up at the horse track.

California's state fairground – once envisioned as a "Disneyland of the North" – is starting to resemble a concrete wasteland when the fair isn't under way.

So it's easy to understand why Brian May, a Cal Expo executive, was so excited about the news he received Friday: Negotiators for Cal Expo and the NBA have agreed to move ahead on plans to build a Sacramento Kings basketball arena at the fairground.

Not only would that mean renewed prominence for 40-year-old Cal Expo, but an infusion of cash to help pay for $40 million in needed repairs. It's enough to make the potential traffic headaches tolerable.

"This is just a great opportunity to modernize and redevelop," May said Saturday. "We hear a lot from people we do business with that our facilities are starting to look tired, and they're not meeting their needs."

The Kings are still years away from a new arena – wherever it ends up, if anywhere in Sacramento at all.

For now, the NBA and Cal Expo plan to spend the next 180 days hammering out a development plan that would accommodate both an arena and a revamped fairground. Developers will submit proposals for turning the 360-acre fairground into a mixed-use and entertainment district.

Traffic will surely be among the thorniest issues, since the fairground sits just off a bottleneck-prone stretch of the Capital City Freeway. The site, however, does feature a vast parking lot, which usually fills up only during the two weeks of the State Fair.

"We recognize it's an issue for us and the public, and it will be addressed," May said.

**Peja Vu** · 05-11-2008, 04:17 PM

Marcos Breton: Kings arena forces are finally pulling together

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For the first time in years of failed tries to build a new sports arena in Sacramento, the parties involved are actually working together.

They are steering clear of lobbing verbal bombs at each other, presenting a unified front – and that's the only way an arena will ever get built in this town.

Does Friday's announcement of an NBA/Sacramento peace offering mean a new arena one day will rise on the Cal Expo fairgrounds? Maybe, maybe not. But that's a lot better than no way.

For years, every time a new arena plan was unveiled, it ended up in the no-way scrap heap. Sacramento is a tough city when it comes to building a sports facility. Voters here are hostile to taxes for private sports facilities. And California does not open the vaults for the inevitable arena cash shortfalls.

Absent those funding streams, past arena deals were left for local governments and the Kings owners to figure out.

Yeah, that didn't go very well. (No need to rehash years of heated words, fumbled plans and political stink bombs).

What matters now is that Sacramento is the opposite of Seattle, where city leaders practically dared the local NBA team to leave.

"We met with the mayor (of Sacramento), she said she'd love to be helpful. We met with the county, they said they'd love to be helpful. We met with the governor, he said he'd love to be helpful," NBA Commissioner David Stern said Friday.

"They are prudently supportive of something intelligent and for the benefit of taxpayers."

Stern plans to return to Sacramento on May 21 – even as the NBA playoffs are reaching a critical stage – to push the idea of a Cal Expo arena.

On that day, the Cal Expo board of directors will vote on whether to approve a letter of understanding, which basically says that the NBA and Cal Expo will work together to get an arena built.

Even if passed, the document will not be legally binding. And it does not address the biggest obstacle: How do you pay for an arena without a new tax?

The letter sets a six-month deadline to get an arena deal done. If the two sides are nowhere in six months, that could be that.

Still, what's important here is that this arena process looks to be a straight business deal and not a political time bomb. It's all about whether building an arena would make fiscal sense for the NBA and for Cal Expo.

Does it pencil out or not?

"The lesson learned from contentious efforts of the past is that if you try to negotiate something all one way, you're not going to get a deal," said former California Gov. Pete Wilson, lead negotiator for Cal Expo on this deal.

The feeling locally was that past deals were stacked in favor of the Kings owners, and that bred hostility.

Wilson is as tough as they come. He is not given to faint praise, but he did say the NBA is showing a willingness to work with local officials to make something happen.

That's half the battle right there. But as Wilson said, that doesn't guarantee anything.

"Let me be absolutely candid, it may not be possible," he said.

The NBA and Cal Expo have to find a developer who believes he can make a project work financially – during a horrible economic downturn.

It's a steep mountain, but at least the climbers are pulling in the same direction.

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