[ CITY PAPER ] STEAMROLLED!
by Isaiah Thompson
Let's say you want to build a stadium. Actually, let's say you want to make money, and you've decided that the way to do that is to own a soccer team. In order for that soccer team to make money, you need to build a stadium for it to play in.
And let's say you like making money more than spending it.
This was the conundrum that faced Keystone Sports and Entertainment LLC, a group of investors including iStar Financial CEO Jay Sugarman, developers Christopher and Robert Buccini and David Pollin of the Buccini/Pollin Group, and former Philadelphia School Reform Commission Chairman James Nevels — we'll call them The Team — who, in early 2007, began looking to build a soccer stadium, and to coax a Major League Soccer team to move in.
Of course, stadiums require land. But land is expensive, and it usually comes with other hassles, too: taxes, neighbors, community groups, politicos seeking a cut of the action. If only there were some piece of ground as cheap as the dirt it sits on, situated in a city that wouldn't tax the owners, where politicians would gladly make a sweetheart deal and neighbors weren't likely to raise much of a fuss — or, if they did, weren't likely to be listened to.
Welcome to Chester.
A once-booming industrial center just... [ READ MORE ]
Let's say you want to build a stadium. Actually, let's say you want to make money, and you've decided that the way to do that is to own a soccer team. In order for that soccer team to make money, you need to build a stadium for it to play in.
And let's say you like making money more than spending it.
This was the conundrum that faced Keystone Sports and Entertainment LLC, a group of investors including iStar Financial CEO Jay Sugarman, developers Christopher and Robert Buccini and David Pollin of the Buccini/Pollin Group, and former Philadelphia School Reform Commission Chairman James Nevels — we'll call them The Team — who, in early 2007, began looking to build a soccer stadium, and to coax a Major League Soccer team to move in.
Of course, stadiums require land. But land is expensive, and it usually comes with other hassles, too: taxes, neighbors, community groups, politicos seeking a cut of the action. If only there were some piece of ground as cheap as the dirt it sits on, situated in a city that wouldn't tax the owners, where politicians would gladly make a sweetheart deal and neighbors weren't likely to raise much of a fuss — or, if they did, weren't likely to be listened to.
Welcome to Chester.
A once-booming industrial center just... [ READ MORE ]
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By MARK SCOLFORO and MARC LEVY - AP -
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by Isaiah Thompson
Let's say you want to build a stadium. Actually, let's say you want to make money, and you've decided that the way to do that is to own a soccer team. In order for that soccer team to make money, you need to build a stadium for...
by Isaiah Thompson
Let's say you want to build a stadium. Actually, let's say you want to make money, and you've decided that the way to do that is to own a soccer team. In order for that soccer team to make money, you need to build a stadium for...
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