City Council votes to sell bonds for new event center

A $50-plus-million Event Center convention facility, proposed to sit on Third Street NE next to the U.S. Cellular Center, has taken a giant step closer to reality.

The City Council, on an 8-0 vote, this week agreed to sell up to $17 million in bond debt if the U.S. Department of Commerce gives the city the other $35 million to build the facility, which has been on the city's wish list since at least 1994.

The city already has secured $15 million in state I-JOBS funds to upgrade the U.S. Cellular Center as part of the project.

The council and community leaders have been courting the Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration over many months for a $35 million grant. This week's council commitment to provide local funds to the project has been portrayed by the council as a last, key assurance that federal officials have demanded of the city before the federal agency makes its award.

Mayor Ron Corbett on Wednesday said he sent a text message via his phone to U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack's Washington, D.C., office in the middle of the Tuesday evening council meeting to alert him the council had approved local funds for the project.

“My hope is we're going to hear favorable news from the Department of Commerce shortly,” Corbett said on Wednesday. “With the $15 million in state money and the city's funds, I would hope the federal government now has the comfort level to the point that they will support this project.”

He noted that Loebsack accompanied Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to Iowa City just last week to announce $30 million in awards for Iowa, a trip during which Loebsack provided Locke with photographs taken in Cedar Rapids at the time of the June 2008 flood, Loebsack's office has noted.

Corbett called the Event Center “an exciting, signature facility for our community,” one that he said will allow the city to compete for convention business it has missed out on. He noted the community has “wrestled” with trying to fund a convention center for some years but never had outside funding to help pay for it. A new Event Center, he added, should help the struggling Crowne Plaza Five Seasons Hotel, which is part of the U.S. Cellular Center complex, to find a buyer.

Doug Neumann, the president/CEO of the Cedar Rapids Downtown District, said on Wednesday that the Event Center stands to be “one of the most important projects in the transformation of post-flood Cedar Rapids, particularly of downtown.”

Further, he called the Event Center “an anchor project” that could spur the building of a new hotel and bring about more dining, entertainment, housing and retail venues in the downtown.

Council member Chuck Wieneke and Corbett both have said they hope to repay the bond debt from the city's hotel-motel tax revenue, though the city was unsuccessful at this year's now-completed state legislative session to get the tax raised from 7 to 9 percent.