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Rooneys execute trick play on public
Eric Heyl is a Tribune-Review staff writer. He can be reached via e-mail or 412-320-7857.
That was how the venerable Rooney family initially sold the concept of a North Shore amphitheater next to Heinz Field. The owners of the Pittsburgh Steelers said the concert venue would be a privately financed venture.
So it remained until Thursday, when Gov. Ed Rendell turned up in town with a $5 million grant for the 5,600-seat, all-season venue that will have a retractable, domed roof. That's about 40 percent of the proposed amphitheater's estimated $12 million cost.
So much for the privately financed venture. You'll be kicking in for this baby.
The amphitheater money was included in $73 million -- which will come out of taxpayers' pockets -- for 19 projects throughout Allegheny County. It certainly stuck out among the other grants, many of which were for the clearing and redevelopment of old industrial properties.
"I believe developing shovel-ready sites is crucial to our ability to compete," Rendell said.
Sites don't come more shovel-ready than the amphitheater property. It's a parking lot.
Unless removing painted parking stripes qualifies as environmental remediation, workers could start building the sucker today.
It would be one thing if the Rooneys had said from the beginning that public money would be required for the project. That would be, I don't know, candor maybe.
But in discussing the amphitheater proposal in July 2001, Steelers President Art Rooney II said the sale of naming rights and sponsorship agreements would help pay for the facility. He insisted no public money would be necessary, a position he reiterated in December 2002, when detailed plans for the amphitheater were unveiled.
When asked about delays in groundbreaking since then, not once did the Rooneys mention a handout would be required to build the amphitheater.
The first hint that the public would be asked to participate in the project was Thursday, when seemingly out of nowhere Rendell presented Rooney with a giant ceremonial check.
"We tried for the longest time to advance the project without public funding, but the economics weren't there to support it," Steelers spokesman Ron Wahl said Friday.
"As with all the other projects receiving these funds, (the grant) serves as a catalyst for private investment to make these projects happen."
That's one way of looking at it. Here's another: If the economics to build the amphitheater privately just aren't there, perhaps the site should remain a parking lot until the economics materialize.
For anyone unfamiliar with the Rooneys, they are wealthy. They own an NFL franchise that less than three weeks ago signed rookie quarterback Ben Roethlisberger to a contract that included a $9 million signing bonus. That same franchise plays in a spiffy new stadium you helped pay for.
Could the Rooneys have afforded to shoulder the amphitheater's cost on their own?
Absolutely.
But when they have the shoulders of state taxpayers to lean on, why should they?
