While LSU officials have been promising for weeks that no taxpayer money would be required for a proposed new arena on campus for concerts and LSU sports, the attorney negotiating the deal says some public money and university land are expected to go toward the project.
The arena project is moving forward with the blessing of the East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President’s office and the Metro Council, which voted to support it last week despite objections over a lack of transparency and potential harm to the Raising Cane’s River Center. The Metro Council has agreed to restrict the parish’s River Center, which is downtown, from hosting bigger concerts and events to keep it from competing with the new arena.
LSU’s Tiger Athletic Foundation has now asked two unnamed developers to submit proposals for the arena, which is expected to cost between $350 million and $400 million. TAF invited six developers and design teams to campus last year and narrowed down the group, behind closed doors, to two front-runners.
LSU has thus far refused to turn over any documents related to the selection process or to identify the two developers vying for the project.
In denying a public records request from The Advocate | The Times-Picayune, LSU attorneys said those records are “within the custody and control of TAF,” which is a private entity that raises money to support LSU’s athletic programs.
LSU and city-parish officials have repeatedly billed the project — an alternative to renovating the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, which they say would be prohibitively expensive — as a game-changing “public-private partnership” to bring a best-in-class arena to the university that would be entirely financed by private developers.
“It will not have any impact on taxpayers,” Keli Zinn, LSU’s executive deputy athletic director, recently told The Advocate. “It will be financed all through the developer.”
But according to Charles Landry, the lawyer shepherding the deal with TAF, several streams of public money may be needed to make the project work, including new sales taxes that the developer could use to help pay for it.
The Legislature approved a new economic development district surrounding LSU last year that paves the way for potential financing of any new projects there, including the arena. Such districts allow private developers to receive public money, and they allow for new sales taxes of up to 2% within the district. New hospitality taxes or property taxes can also be imposed in the districts.
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