Comstock's magazine 0118 - January 2018 | Seite 46

n DEVELOPMENT
n a way, not much has changed.
At the Golden 1 Center, Sacramento Kings fans
continue to wave cowbells at games, having long since
embraced the once-insulting apparatus. The grub still
costs a pretty penny. The team remains perpetually in
a building year.
But there the similarities end. Because, for the most part,
major differences exist between now and before the Golden 1
Center opened in October 2016.
Instead of an arena surrounded by parking lot in all di-
rections, visitors to the new facility must park downtown
or arrive via light rail and walk past shops, restaurants and
bars. The Golden 1 Center is the world’s first LEED Platinum
indoor sports arena and 100 percent solar powered. Public
art installations greet patrons, including an $8 million sculp-
ture of Piglet by world-renowned artist Jeff Koons anchored
in an outdoor plaza. Inside, concession food now boasts
locally-sourced ingredients
from vendors representing
the city’s finest — including
LowBrau, Paragary’s and
Selland’s — and the arena’s
executive chef hails from a
fine-dining background.
How much has all of
this cost taxpayers? About
$500 for each Sacramento
resident, if the $255 million
public subsidy to build the
facility were spread across
the
city’s
approximate
500,000 residents.
Sacramentans, how do
you feel about your invest-
ment?
I
THE SACRAMENTO KINGS
AN ORIGIN STORY
Good luck explaining the
history of the downtown
arena to anyone who didn’t
live through it: A wealthy
Silicon Valley software de-
veloper, Vivek Ranadivé, purchases one of the nation’s most
dysfunctional basketball teams in 2013 in a region that – de-
spite steadfast efforts by the community – refuses to recover
from the Great Recession. To keep the team, then-mayor and
former NBA All-Star Kevin Johnson convinces his colleagues
on the Sacramento City Council to borrow hundreds of
millions of dollars for an arena at the site of an anemic down-
town shopping mall.
46
comstocksmag.com | January 2018
HAS 1.5 MILLION SQUARE FEET OF SPACE
TO BUILD ACROSS SIX SQUARE BLOCKS ON
THE WEST END OF K STREET, ARGUABLY
TRANSFORMING THE BASKETBALL TEAM INTO
ONE OF THE MOST PROMINENT
REAL ESTATE DEVELOPERS
IN CALIFORNIA.