Arena Location

[TedBaxter]

http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/blog/2015/04/bucks-owners-glad-they-chose-site-north-of-bradley.html

Early on I was a proponent of building north of the Bradley Center based on the flexibility of the location and the ability to build while continuing to play games in the other arenas. I was never sold on the size of the other potential sites to house an arena complex, especially down by Wisconsin Avenue.

[MayorBeluga]

Come on Ted, what do you expect them to say? Of course they will claim the site they chose was the best.

I still would have preferred the Journal/Arena/Theater site for number of reasons such as tying into the Convention Center, proximity to Wisc Ave, getting rid of the money draining Arena and Theater, but that ship has sailed. Now is the time to make your preferred site work.

[TheSultan]

Good news is that Walker has been more publicly involved in the last day. He wouldn't make such pronouncements unless he was sure this thing was getting done. He has too much on the line politically.

http://www.wisn.com/news/walker-bucks-arena-funding-agreement-close/32654176

[MU/Panther]

It's a win, win!

[TedBaxter]

Come on Ted, what do you expect them to say? Of course they will claim the site they chose was the best.

I still would have preferred the Journal/Arena/Theater site for number of reasons such as tying into the Convention Center, proximity to Wisc Ave, getting rid of the money draining Arena and Theater, but that ship has sailed. Now is the time to make your preferred site work.

You can go back and look at why I felt this location would be the best. Would anchor the entrance to the northwest side of downtown, would allow for a practice facility to be built just north of MATC (which I had mentioned) and be better for the construction phasing.

I understand why people felt they wanted it closer to the convention center, but all of those plans looked like they had to shoehorn the arena into a site and vacate streets and the site focus should be the arena and not trying to fit the arena into somewhere to help the convention center. Just my opinion.

[MayorBeluga]

I understand your point Ted. And yes, you have long been an advocate for the eventual site. I don't discount your expertise. I do, however, discount an after-the-fact statement from someone involved that they chose the best site when they were so obviously enammored with another site.

[Goose85]

I understand your point Ted. And yes, you have long been an advocate for the eventual site. I don't discount your expertise. I do, however, discount an after-the-fact statement from someone involved that they chose the best site when they were so obviously enammored with another site.

There were numerous attempts to secure the JS building (Barrett and the Bucks), even down the stretch before the eventual site was announced. There is no doubt the second choice (by far) became the eventual site.