I went to the Ag Hall of fame with my grandfather almost 20 years ago... it was great - he was so enthused to look at the old equipment, and describe how it was used when he was growing up. It's amazing how labor intensive it was (compared to modern herbicides, tractors, combines, etc). I would recommend you check it out -- if you have any ties to agriculture.

The complexity of the STAR bonds and the backdoor extensions which were used to finance the soccer stadium make Enron's financials look straightforward. Let me give it a shot: Yes, they're paying the part of the debt associated with original "Village West" ahead of time -- to be completed in 2014. However the bond portion that was paid back has been re-used for the soccer project. This means the $40m per year that "Village West" (now tactfully called Legends Outlets) was supposed to generate in net positive sales tax revenues to Kansas' general fund has been re-directed back to paying the recycled STAR bonds for the soccer stadium. Thus, comparing previous projections to actuals shows $40m per year tax revenue loss due to soccer -- but obviously no outright payments from the general fund.

Yes P&L is losing money. But doing brownfield work is always more expensive up front than the greenfield ones I despise so much. Yes, KC really should have had Cordish assume more risk in the project, too. In any event, the two projects seem similar on the surface, but with inspection are quite different. P&L had a great deal of infrastructure upgrade associated with it (new sewer, knock down buildings, refurbished hotels, built parking garages, etc) - much of which would have had to be done sometime anyway. By contrast for the raceway they didn't even need surface parking lots.. people simply park on the grass. Also, without the investment that P&L represents, we'd never have seen NCAA and several conventions. Even though the place seems sorta kitchy, it's probably worth it all in the long run. But I guess I'm contributing to it's financial problems: I never go to P&L!

It's funny too... you don't hear about it so much, but so many of these anchored retail projects are just not doing well. Independence is losing north of $4m per year (paying out of the general fund, on top of planned subsidies) for the Bass Pro shop they put up recently. Overland Park is losing north of $2m per year on it's convention center hotel (again, paying out of the general fund, on top of planned subsidies). The Bass Pro project in Olathe isn't doing well, either.. and the "great mall" isn't so great. For the suburbs, losses like these are a much bigger slice of the revenue pie, too.

And yea, I do worry about KCK all the same.