Bach promises big returns with ‘City for Champions’ plan

Mayor Steve Bach this week announced an ambitious plan totalling roughly $218 million to build four major attractions in Colorado Springs, without any new taxes needed.

They include two downtown sites: a U.S. Olympic museum and a baseball stadium and event center (which sounds a bit like the convention center voters have refused to fund several times in the past). The other two are a University of Colorado at Colorado Springs sports medicine and performance center and an Air Force Academy visitor center outside the base's gates.

Bach says the city will file its privately crafted application, dubbed "City for Champions," through a program under the Regional Tourism Act, which is designed to fund projects that will attract more out-of-state visitors. A state panel will assess the application and decide by December.

Calling the projects a "catalytic spark" to ignite growth and create jobs, Bach says the money will come from state sales taxes rebated to the city ($82 million), private investment ($61.4 million), and from a variety of public sources ($74.6 million), including city borrowing.

As for the latter, Bach points out that the city's nearly paid off a previous $88 million debt, issued in 1999, that funded drainage, public safety and transportation projects without a tax increase; when that's done, he says, the city can borrow again while sparing other departments.

Other types of public money also will be used, city spokeswoman Julie Smith says, including a tax credit for which details were not available as of press time.

Winning statistics

The new projects, Bach says, would draw nearly a half million out-of-staters here per year. They would bring $6.9 billion in new state retail sales taxes, and $312 million in local sales taxes, over 30 years.

That said, it's unknown where those figures come from. While the city hired Summit Economics to study the economic impact of moving the Sky Sox downtown, the study didn't venture into impact from all the projects.

The Summit Economics study was released to media late Monday, five days after the Gazette reported details from it. The daily is owned by Clarity Media, a company controlled by billionaire Philip Anschutz. The Anschutz Foundation was one of four entities that each gave $75,000 to fund the city's application, the others being the city, El Pomar Foundation and the tax-supported Downtown Development Authority.

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Bach promises big returns with 'City for Champions' plan