Opinion: Ask El Paso voters if they still want a Downtown venue
By city Rep. Chris Canales
Joined by city representatives Brian Kennedy and Art Fierro, I placed an item on the agenda for Tuesday’s City Council meeting calling for a proposition on the ballot in the November 2024 election to ask voters if they want to revoke the city’s authority to issue bonds for the Multipurpose Performing Arts and Entertainment Facility (commonly called the “Downtown arena” or the “MPC”), effectively ending the project.
The MPC’s proposed Downtown location is in my district, so I feel the need to explain why we think this is an important question to pose to El Paso’s voters.
Bond laws are complex, but the City Council has the legal option to make this decision ourselves without an election, to choose not to issue these bonds and abandon the project due to a material change in circumstances. Instead, I feel it is appropriate to ask El Pasoans how they want to proceed.
Voters have been waiting 12 long years since the passage of the 2012 quality of life bond election for some resolution on the MPC project, and after so much time they should have their voices heard again at the ballot box.
This is a project that the current City Council should never have even inherited. In the 12 years since the MPC project was first approved, the project has, through a series of high profile headwinds and hang-ups, morphed into something that no longer resembles the initial concept.
The reality now, in 2024, is that there is nowhere near the amount of funding required to deliver an “arena” – a project of that scale would cost something in the range of $400-$500 million, not the $128 million remaining in unsold bonds.
Even the $128 million in new debt would exert significant pressure on the city’s tax rate for years to come. While the city of El Paso is doing better than many peer cities in our recovery from the economic difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, that recovery is still in progress. Our citizens are still feeling the impact in the form of inflation and increased cost of living.
This raises the vital question of whether the timing is right for such a sizable debt-funded project. That question is one that I think the city must now pose to the public, which is why we are proposing this for inclusion on the ballot in November.
I won’t say that the proposal of the MPC project was the wrong decision in 2012. The economic context was very different more than a decade ago, and a whole lot of socioeconomic upheaval has happened since then.
I also won’t say that building a large entertainment venue in Downtown would definitely be a bad idea for El Paso’s post-recovery future. Just as the context has changed since 2012, it will continue to change with the march of time, and there may be a future in which the idea of a Downtown arena can be reconceptualized, realistically priced out, and proposed to the voters again as a far more complete package, including a specific location.
That option is far better than continuing to modify the existing project again and again to the point where it is no longer recognizable or even wanted by its original supporters.
If a Downtown arena is desired in the future, El Pasoans deserve to make a decision about such a large project with full knowledge of what will be developed, the potential benefits and challenges, and of course the real cost to the taxpayers.
I don’t want to presume that the proposition on the ballot will pass and the MPC project in its current iteration will be ended. There is of course the possibility that the public will choose not to revoke the city’s bonding authority for the project, implicitly saying that the project should move forward.
There is a current proposal to build an 8,000 capacity indoor/outdoor hybrid venue next to the Union Depot rail station that admittedly wasn’t very popular. After years of prior city councils pivoting and studying alternatives, I believe that this proposal is the most viable option if the project does move forward, but I know many others do not agree.
If the City Council doesn’t pass this agenda item, or if the voters don’t ultimately pass the proposition, I’m sure there will still be plenty of discussion about what direction to go in next. We will cross that bridge if we come to it, or more aptly if the voters lead us to it.
Chris Canales has served as city representative for District 8 on the El Paso City Council, which includes Downtown, since January 2023.
This article first appeared on El Paso Matters and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
