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(03-12-2018 02:18 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  

(03-12-2018 01:50 PM)blazers9911 Wrote:  Why do you not believe all the people who have told you the MPF is not happening?

As I stated, REALITY indicates the BJCC stadium is the one that will be built and will be what we have for the next several decades. My opinion remains that the city needs the larger MPF to compete for those larger conventions and events to be considered a major southern sunbelt city. How far down tier level we will slide depends upon what other such cities build larger while we are building smaller.

In my lifetime, I have seen this city build smaller and cheaper in a state that has dropped from 9 House seats to 7 and is projected to drop to 6 in 2020. According to this weekend BBJ, Alabama today has over 62,000 FEWER JOBS in 2018 than it had in 2007 before the recession -- placing Alabama number 50 among the states in job recovery. Perhaps B'ham is just fitting in with the culture of the rest of Alabama. Hasn't it worked for the state's power brokers so far?

The BJCC is what can be done. The MPF is not happening. Birmingham is not Atlanta, or anything close to Atlanta, and never will be. What Birmingham is doing is what is needed currently. Building a facility far too large for the city is not the answer to anything.

(03-12-2018 03:24 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  

(03-12-2018 02:44 PM)legalblazer Wrote:  

(03-12-2018 01:09 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  B'ham STILL needs the MPF to compete for major conventions and other larger and smaller events like those that kept the GA Dome busy year round.

Which major conventions used the Georgia Dome (as opposed to the Georgia World Congress Center or America's Mart)?

I only see things like the Jehovah's Witnesses and Primerica (a Ponzi scheme) that actually needed an auditorium that size for their convention. Everything else went to the more typical convention spaces that are like the BJCC.

And I worked at a Microsoft coders conference at the Georgia Dome once - where they were using the floor for convention space (and not the seats) and it was very awkward. It was like a scene out of HBOs Silicon Valley... lots of money clearly spent, lightly attended, America's Got Talent act on one end, Go karts on another, a MIG jet in the middle for some reason.

While you may have not liked the GA Dome, you were still THERE using the space. Someone was paying "lots of money" for its space and according to your account, three different events were going on while you were there. I have quoted the GA Dome manager who, after the building was damaged by a storm during the SEC BB tournament, stated that they had to get it repaired quickly because "they had over 200 events already scheduled" to come in. He didn't say "200 football games" or that the events may not come in 2 or 3 at a time.

As The Bard had Mark Antony say about Caesar, "The good is often interred with their bones". It appears that is what we are doing with Dr Joseph Volker's admonition about dreams for UAB and the City of B'ham.

And you didn't answer my question. Which major conventions used the GA Dome?

And to more narrowly tailor that, which ones used it that needed the seats or headroom that only an arena space that size could provide.

My example was one day... one event (with three things on the floor at once). They could have all been in the BJCC Convention Hall and there would have been more space than there was in the floor of the dome (with the possible exception of the karts depending on ventilation of exhaust fumes - and I know the space was not rented for the karts because the kart provider is who I was volunteering for).

You argue incessantly for this MPF as a panacea that will open the floodgates of convention nirvana to flow upon Birmingham. What conventions cannot be handled at the BJCC that could be handled at an MPF? All I can think of are large football games, drone racing, the paper airplane world championships, and Scientologists of North Florida.

Provide concrete examples to demonstrate and support your points.

The reason that particular convention I mentioned was at the Dome had much more to do with the Dome being in Atlanta than the space being a Dome (and none of the dome seating was being used. This was all on the floor.)

The GWCC may have been booked with something larger ... like the Atlanta Auto Show. Or maybe Microsoft had than in use for another part of their conference. The Dome might have been more economical than booking the GWCC if they only needed a football field worth of space (90,000 sq feet?) instead of 1.4 million sq feet at the GWCC. So that leaves the Dome being a convenient option for smaller conventions (which the BJCC could handle), or things that need 20,000 - 70,000 people watching one thing at once (anything smaller can be accomodated by the BJCC), or things that need that airspace.

So what conventions did the Georgia Dome get that needed seating for 20,000 - 70,000 people to watch one thing (or I guess we could put up a curtain and hold a conference tournament on two courts at once), or need that airspace? Those are the only unique properties of a dome over a conventional convention hall that I can come up with.

If you can't come up with enough to keep the dome as busy as you argued the Georgia Dome was... then you should consider whether it was really just the fact that the Georgia Dome was in Atlanta... a metro area of nearly 6 million people, over 100,000 hotel rooms, ~16 Fortune 500 companies, with the world's busiest airport 10 miles away. That might have a lot more to do with Atlanta getting that business than them having usable indoor event space with 70,000 seats and high ceilings.

If Birmingham had those stats, UAB would be in the ACC and play in an OCS, and the BJCC would be talking about imploding their old used up dome to build a new one.

1. Birmingham does not have the hotel space for a convention which would require a dome.

2. As has been said over and over and over, Birmingham does not have the money to build a dome. Period. Dot. Endit.
We're still fighting to come up with the money to build a stadium that costs a third to half as much as a dome.

No conventions that are currently going to Atlanta, and utilizing the Georgia World Congress Center and/or the dome, would ever consider Birmingham even if you built a Mercedes Benz Stadium clone in Birmingham. There is so much more to it than than just the facility, and Birmingham isn't there. The time to build a small-ish dome was MAPS. That failed, and the world has passed Birmingham by. In the year 2018 it's too late to try to jump ahead and act like Birmingham is a city that it's not.

Why do people respond to bamanblazer anymore

(03-12-2018 08:48 PM)Blazer88 Wrote:  Why do people respond to bamanblazer anymore

Perhaps because I cite FACTS and they know I was around when "Being like Atlanta" was a real possibility and actually led to real debate. In my youth, the two cities' populations were about the same size (about 350,000), their baseball teams played each other in the same Southern League (along with Nashville, Chattanooga, Memphis and New Orleans), they both had a leadership as racist as any (Lester Maddox would easily match up with Eugene Conner) and GA and AL had about the same representation in Congress (our 9 and their 10). Then the two cities (and their states) took divergent paths into the future, both socially and politically.

The quantum differences between the two cities are the result of RECENT differences in leadership, both in the cities and their states. As late as 1980, one could go up to the Polaris Lounge at the top of the Hyatt and see the whole city skyline as it revolved like the restaurant on Seattle's Space Needle. Today it is surrounded on all sides by tall buildings so it probably does not revolve any more. Nearly all those restaurants, hotel rooms and tourist traps are relatively new. The whole city grew as a package because it had progressive leadership over time that Alabama and B'ham have lacked at critical times.

Can B'ham compete with Atlanta? That is not even a serious question anymore. Today we wonder about competing with Huntsville, Mobile and Montgomery just to stay a little ahead in city population. With the state promoting those cities while doing nothing for Jeffco / B'ham, it may be a question how long it can hold out. We have met the enemy, and it is our own state and our own suburbs.

Atlanta has been hovering at or above 400,000 since 1990. Birmingham has fallen from about 265,000 to 210,000 today.

Suburbs are not the enemy, suburbs are where people live. 5.8 million people live in the Atlanta metro area.

You want to build a MPF in a city that is 20 percent the size of Atlanta to compete with Atlanta. That ship has sailed(a long time ago at that), and we are moving onto the next best thing.

I’m also not sure when you were in Georgia last, but that state can be just as racist as Alabama.

Where's our beluga whale???

(03-12-2018 10:43 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  The quantum differences between the two cities are the result of RECENT differences in leadership, both in the cities and their states. As late as 1980,

Here's your number one problem. 1980 is not recent, and the times you talk about, when Birmingham had a shot of becoming Atlanta, is even less recent. By a very long shot. It's not 1980. It's not 1960. It's not 1950. Leadership in Atlanta and Georgia diverged from leadership in Birmingham and Alabama a long time ago, not recently.

I'll be honest. If we could afford a MPF I would be in the minority and be for it but that ship sailed with MAPS. This is all we can afford and it will suit us well and progress this community. It's this or nothing. Dome is not happening period. We can build this facility to be the biggest and best it can be for the money and be state of the art. This renovation and addition is sorely needed to keep us relevant in the entertainment industry not even thinking about UAB. Now factor us in and it puts us on another level recruiting and for future expansion.

We all need to pull in the same direction.

(03-13-2018 10:36 AM)ATTALLABLAZE Wrote:  I'll be honest. If we could afford a MPF I would be in the minority and be for it but that ship sailed with MAPS. This is all we can afford and it will suit us well and progress this community. It's this or nothing. Dome is not happening period. We can build this facility to be the biggest and best it can be for the money and be state of the art. This renovation and addition is sorely needed to keep us relevant in the entertainment industry not even thinking about UAB. Now factor us in and it puts us on another level recruiting and for future expansion.

We all need to pull in the same direction.

You are, as usual, very perceptive about where we are today regarding a new stadium. TWENTY years ago we had the chance to build an MPF to rival any facility in the southeast. As Marlon Brando's character might have said, "We could have been a contender". The choices that were made have now left us in 2018 with the "BJCC stadium or nothing". Our hopes in that regard are that the final designs for the new stadium will be "fan centric" state of the art modern, and not just a smaller version of what we already have. We won't know for sure until all our ducks are lined up, and the needed money is on the table.

The worst that can happen for UAB is to be stuck in Legion Field for another 2 or 3 decades instead of playing in a new facility. Either way, UAB will be assured to have a place to play.

John Rogers threatened to filibuster the General Fund budget vote so the BJCC bill will not be voted on today. Jack Williams says it has the votes to pass.

(03-13-2018 01:56 PM)hooverblazer Wrote:  John Rogers threatened to filibuster the General Fund budget vote so the BJCC bill will not be voted on today. Jack Williams says it has the votes to pass.

We need to keep in mind that the House and the Senate bills must be identical as passed by each body in order for it to go to the Governor to sign into law. ANY variation (like added amendments) will require the bills go to a conference committee and then back to each house for a new vote. Adding nongermane amendments to bills is a favorite way in Montgomery to get local bills to a vote or to block passage of opposed legislation.

Which has NOTHING to do with hooverblazer's post.

(03-13-2018 02:34 PM)BlazerFromMD Wrote:  Which has NOTHING to do with hooverblazer's post.

It has nothing to do with his post IF no one in either house uses such tactics to delay passage in either house. As long as the bills passed in both houses remain identical, it is a cakewalk to the Governor's desk. If NOT, the game goes into overtime.

Oh my gosh! Just approve all that is necessary and get on with it. I am so sick of all of this blah, blah, blah, blah! It's nonsense.

(03-13-2018 05:08 PM)TheGORILLA Wrote:  Oh my gosh! Just approve all that is necessary and get on with it. I am so sick of all of this blah, blah, blah, blah! It's nonsense.

Politics in the state of Alabama, and the city of Birmingham usually are nonsense, but it's better than it used to be.

(03-13-2018 05:35 PM)Bham Blazer Wrote:  

(03-13-2018 05:08 PM)TheGORILLA Wrote:  Oh my gosh! Just approve all that is necessary and get on with it. I am so sick of all of this blah, blah, blah, blah! It's nonsense.

Politics in the state of Alabama, and the city of Birmingham usually are nonsense, but it's better than it used to be.

That is true because many more citizens of Alabama and B'ham feel they are stakeholders in what happens in this state and city. Until the last quarter of the 20th century, about 1/3 of the citizens of this state were excluded from voting, much less holding political office. Laws can be changed overnight, but cultural adjustments to those new laws take much more time. That assumes there is a wilingness to adapt. Alabama's conservatives led the Supreme Court fight to reduce the effectiveness of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and have done a lot to shift Alabama public school taxes to support private schools (over $75 million at last count).

The BJCC bill is expected to be one of the first bills up for consideration in the House today. Jack Williams said he expects it to pass, but John Rogers plans to filibuster. However, I think they have the votes to cut off the filibuster. We'll see.