69����

The city council is set to meet at 6 p.m. today at City Hall, 18 N. Jackson St. The meeting will be streamed live at and broadcast on JATV Channel 994.

If approved Monday night, $17.3 million would be the single biggest funding commitment so far for the proposed public-private development that could cost as least $50.3 million to build and could require the city to additionally kick in tens of thousands of dollars in annual operating subsidies to run it, according to the latest city estimates.

If the city council gives its final approval in 2023 to construct the 130,000-square-foot center, the $17.3 million in borrowing represents significant skin in the game by City Hall, that’s spent the past few months working with consultants on re-designs aimed at paring back what had ballooned to $60 million in costs.

City officials say they have trimmed out $10 million in costs, in part by deferring completion of some of the arena’s youth locker room spaces. Meanwhile, city officials including Moore and City Council President Paul Benson have said in recent days that an approved borrowing by the city would send a strong signal to Gov. Tony Evers and federal authorities on the Woodman’s Center’s prospects.

The city and private interests continue to lobby for $24 million in government grants that aren’t yet a sure thing, but would likely be necessary for the project’s success, fueling about half the estimated cost.

Janesville Jets commitment

One council member said this week she wonders why the Woodman’s Center’s anticipated primary user, the Janesville Jets hockey team, hasn’t been more transparent about what it would financially offer toward the multimillion-dollar development.

Council member Heather Miller said she’d like to see the Woodman’s Center built, but it troubles her that the Jets haven’t yet disclosed how much they’d contribute to its construction. That, though the Jets were the first entity to publicly lobby for a new public ice arena to replace the city’s aging one-sheet facility on Beloit Avenue.

Miller said the council is on the verge of pledging millions to the largest public commitment in the city’s history, but said all she’s heard from the Jets is an opaque promise to be a “supportive partner.”

“I need to feel like I’m not playing this game of chess with the Jets and know what their buy-in actually is. What are you putting up?” Miller said in a pointed statement at a public forum late last week.

“I’m glad (the Jets) are ‘supportive.’ I’d think they’d be supportive, but that doesn’t give a number. Let’s have a range. We have nothing,” Miller said.

Over the weekend, Miller told The 69���� she’s asked city staff and the Friends of the Indoor Sports and Convention Center, a booster group that has raised about $5.6 million in private pledges for the project, to press the Jets for a more concrete commitment.

Based on an earlier estimate of $15 million in borrowing at current interest rates, plus a possible annual city operating subsidy to build and run the Woodman’s Center, the average city taxpayer would likely see an impact of about $35 a year.

The North American Hockey League affiliate Jets would, meanwhile, reap significant revenue through ticket sales, food vending and merchandising. So far, Miller said she’s only heard that the team might farm in a youth league it now runs in Madison and cover the cost of building out its own locker room and team office spaces.

Miller said the city in recent days has offered transparency to the public and the private sector on its process, making clear the amount it would likely borrow for construction and making a consultant’s draft analysis of the city’s operating costs publicly available.

Grants

The city has lobbied and written proposals, some formal, for some of the $24 million in grants it seeks. But officials also said the city as of last week had not yet formally applied for part of that money—a federal economic development grant worth about $4 million. It’s scheduled to be awarded sometime next year.

Miller said she sat with Christine Rebout, the director of the nonprofit Janesville Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, for three hours last week. She said Rebout opened the visitors bureau’s books to show her the dozens of significant-sized convention and trade shows the city has lost in the last half decade due to its lack of large convention center space.

Rebout’s group plans to donate staff time and cash that funds the visitors bureau’s own operations to initially market sporting events and to market the 20,000-square-foot convention center space that’s part of the plans.

“I think when you look at where we’ve come even in the last six weeks, we’ve all come forward in a really big way making information available,” Miller said. “The Jets have not done that.”

In late November, Jets founder and president Bill McCoshen, in an update at a City Council meeting, said the Jets would commit capital dollars for the Woodman’s Center but didn’t disclose how much.

But McCoshen told The 69���� on Sunday that the Jets owners don’t intend to commit to helping to fund the project until they have final word on their lease at the center.

McCoshen said that likely won’t happen until at least the spring of 2023. He said lease negotiations will be tied in part to the overall funding plans for the project, including millions in hoped-for grant funding, some of which might not be awarded for months.

McCoshen said a Jets’ commitment “will come from us (owners) personally, and that won’t get factored in until all the other pieces are done in our lease agreement. That’s because our expenses could double in a new facility. We’ve got to expect that, so we’ve got to make sure the thing still breaks even.”

“We’re not going to contribute money and lose money,” McCoshen said.

Operating losses

City staff, meanwhile, pushed back last week against a 69���� article that projected operating losses in early years of as much as $275,000, based on a consultant’s report that indicates facilities similar to the Woodman’s Center typically recover just 80% of operating costs per year.

That’s much more conservative estimate than the 97% cost recovery the city estimates it would see operating the center with its own staff and staff donated by the Convention & Visitors Bureau.

City Neighborhood Services Director Jennifer Petruzzello, who has served on an ad hoc committee on design and has managed grant writing for the project, told The 69���� in an interview she believes it’s unfair to project losses based on a consultant’s most conservative estimates.

Petruzzello and others last week, including Janesville City Council Vice President Dave Marshick, downplayed the analysis, calling it “very conservative” and merely a “guess” at the Woodman’s Center’s financial performance.

McCoshen and Rebout both say the consultant’s estimate drastically underestimates non-sports convention business the center could draw, and it doesn’t factor in concession sales, although it’s not clear which parties would profit from vending.

City officials have repeatedly showed in reports and presentations that the $24 million in grant funding the city is pursuing is being considered as part of the project’s overall “capital stack.”

Miller questioned this week how much weight the city should give to the grant funding as a tangible piece of the project’s overall financing. She pointed out the city likely won’t learn until midyear 2023—at the earliest—whether it might be awarded the bulk of that funding.

“I think we’re at a point where, if $10 million or $15 million doesn’t come through, the project doesn’t happen regardless of how big or small it is,” Miller said. “It doesn’t happen. That’s just the reality.”