Status vs. the City’s July 17 draft term sheet: DELIVERED — overrun assignment to the operator, the non-relocation stack (specific performance + clawback), the unconditional parent guaranty · PARTIAL — audit rights (“a process to be established”), a $3M/yr tax offset (vs. the county-formula minimum of $5.1–9.4M/yr post-renovation, below) · OPEN — rent, operator cash, naming, parking, development, the three clause deletions · AT RISK — the §10.2 claim (unmentioned; the lease is to be “amended and restated” — require the no-novation recital). Full scoring: ripcitynotripoff.com/city-draft
The principle: if public money builds it, the public shares in it. Renovate the Moda Center, keep the Blazers — on market terms. Every number below is anchored to an executed document: this ownership's own 2024 Raleigh deal, Portland's own 2024 bridge lease, an enacted Oregon statute, or a verified peer-city deal (all hosted at the URL above). Leverage: under SB 1501 §5, no state bonds issue and no tax-capture transfers flow until the City and County sign — and the statute's protections are floors, required “at a minimum” (§6(1)(d)). Est = modeled estimate from public data.
| Term | The number | Anchor & drafting guard |
|---|---|---|
| Public capital | $485M cap — State $365M + City $120M re-sourced to parking/user-fee revenue (no PCEF, no General Fund); tax-exempt proceeds barred from the premium scope | SB 5701 §§4–7; bond-counsel allocation memo is a condition precedent |
| Operator cash | ≥$245M new money into the revenue-generating scope (~32% of program — the peer middle) Est | Ownership paid 18–62% in every verified peer renovation (CLE 62, DC 35.6, ATL 26, IND 18); the City’s own study marks ~$341M revenue-facing |
| §10.2 settlement | $120M of certified necessary repair — counted once, as a discharge of the operator’s existing first-class debt, never as “capital”; shortfall converts to cash | Lease §5.4 + tolled §10.2 (~$164M face); no novation — the drafting move that would erase the claim |
| Rent | $4.5M/yr esc. 3% from occupancy ($2M/yr in construction) ≈ $121M/20yr, paid to the City directly — plus a $2.5M/yr operator capital reserve | His own Raleigh signature (2024, replacing rent-free); Charlotte’s reserve; never routed into the Arena Fund |
| Participation | 18% of gross premium/club/naming revenue above a CPI-indexed, audited FY25-26 baseline ≈ $100M/20yr Est | Gross, never net (his books are uncopyable: §10.14/§16.9 — override them); baseline resets only pro-rata to capex he funds; FMV anti-gaming |
| Overruns | Owner-level GMP at the approved budget; 100% operator absorption above it; savings 65/35 public; budget reconciled line-by-line to the City’s study | SB 1501 §6(1)(c) names no payer — the contract must; “authority-requested” = authority-initiated only (never code/field/design/operator changes) |
| Term | 30 years + two 5-yr options (each: $25M reinvestment + FMV rent reset) — contingent on the 2027 §4 sunset (tax diversion ends at bond retirement) | SB 1501 §4 otherwise diverts Rose Quarter withholding — incl. team payroll — to the later of expiry or retirement |
| Development | 7-yr exclusive with his own Raleigh milestones: $200M by yr 5 / $400M by yr 10 / $800M by yr 20; 6% appraised ground rent (5-yr resets); district on the tax rolls; 10% affordable; in-tract infrastructure on the developer | His 2024 Raleigh deal; ORS 307.110; milestones drafted as City termination rights; delete DA §29.4, §29.5, Lease §12.5 |
| Naming | Operator keeps arena naming in-Term — the renovated re-rate (~$4M→$7–9M/yr Est) lands in the participation base; 50/50 on district naming; reverts to the City at lease end | DA §31.2.4 (50/50 already signed), §31.4 (reversion) — a new lease is a fresh license; price it |
| Parking | 25% “administration” fee deleted; City takes 30% of gross event parking from 2031 ≈ $70M/20yr Est | Parking §8.4 (the fee) vs §8.1 (“shall not be compensated”); §5.1.5 monthly data are public records |
| User fees | Close all five §28 carve-outs: premium seats at actual price, suites at 6% of license revenue, single-event to 100%, affiliate netting ended, promoter-default risk on the operator ≈ $50M/20yr | ~85% fan-paid — book it honestly and never trade ownership money for it |
| PILOT | Greatest-of-three: certified pre-exemption floor ($1.2–1.5M, CPI) · county formula on the renovation ($5.1–9.4M/yr min) · appraised equivalency (low-to-mid teens), no offsets, paid to taxing jurisdictions | ORS 308.153: 0.512 × 26.9199 ÷ 1,000 = 1.3783% of added RMV; Raleigh pays >$3.5M/yr today; methodology at /pilot |
| Relocation | Formula damages — the greater of (outstanding public debt + unamortized City/County capital + PV of remaining rent) or 1.1× that sum — plus express specific performance; obligors RCM + Trail Blazers Inc., joint & several; $50M evergreen letter of credit; springing holdco recourse; sale void without assumption; Coliseum games fee’d & counted as home | A flat headline number risks Oregon’s penalty doctrine (Illingworth; DiTommaso) — the formula is reasonable by construction; specific performance is what settled the Sonics case; ESA §3.3, §2 |
| Transparency | NDA terminated; Oregon public-records law supreme; City audit + copy rights; public Oregon-seated arbitration; annual public compliance report; quarterly reporting written past the statute’s 2032 sunset | Replaces Lease §11.6 (records tip-off), §10.14 (no copies), §14 (confidential NY arbitration) |
| Sovereignty | Delete §3.3 (City reimburses any City ticket tax & lobbies the State against new ones); narrow §15 (metro venue non-compete) with a Coliseum carve-out, dying on default | Lease §3.3 + DA §28.2.4; §15 currently bars even the City’s own backup plan |
Walking costs the ownership ~$640M (range $440–850M): the foregone $27–41M/yr of renovation revenue, the bridge-lease capital + first-class obligations and tolled ~$164M claim he keeps, the lapsed development option, and the franchise-value delta of a 2030 lease cliff.
Walking is worth ~$450–550M to Portland: $485M of local cash unspent, an arena the operator must maintain through 2030/35, the preserved claim, and state money revivable in the 2027 session.
The cost translation: tax shields, fan-paid incidence, discounting, and zero-cost guarantees mean headline dollars cost less than face value — so the package below the line is conservative, not aggressive. Count-once total: ~$1.1–1.2B vs the published $450–600M peer floor before the tax-equivalent PILOT.
True after-tax cost of the full package: ~$400–430M PV Est — the new cash, participation, and tax-equivalent PILOT are the main items that move his real ledger (fees are fan-paid, the settlement discharges money already owed, the penalty costs a staying owner nothing).
Against a ~$640M walk-away cost, the modeling says he signs and keeps $200M+ of surplus — with his structural needs intact: $450M+ of public capital in the building, multi-year development exclusivity, springing rather than standing recourse.
Every cash ask is his own Raleigh signature or a verified peer deal — “unprecedented” is not an available answer. And the zero-cost protections are the tell: a refusal there can't plead cost — it owes a stated reason, on the record.
Sources, hosted in full at ripcitynotripoff.com: enrolled SB 1501 & SB 5701 (2026); the executed 2024 Arena Operating Lease, Exclusive Site Agreement, Parking Agreement & Development Agreement (Ord. 191857/191858); the City-commissioned VSG facility study; 16 verified peer NBA deals. These are public benchmarks for judging the deal, not anyone’s settlement authority — Council holds the pen. Watch for the three failure modes: the County gate, an unproven funding source, and the definitive-documents drafting war.
ripcitynotripoff.com/terms