Heineman on 3 Trails

Last week, Robb Heineman was on Sports Radio 810 here in Kansas City, on Between the Lines with Kevin Kietzman. The Wizards have posted the interview on their website, you can listen to it here.

Overall the interview is really well done. Kietzman, who I'm normally not a fan of, asks some very informative questions to get more information out of Heineman about the project. Basically, the interview was a rehash of a lot of the information that this blog has already brought you. The project is almost a $1 billion project, OnGoal is putting up about $750 million of that themselves, with $273 million coming from the TIF.

In the interview, Heineman discusses OnGoal's plans for the area. They want to make it a high performance entertainment area, with retail, soccer tournaments, night clubs, concerts, etc. A lot like the Legends, but different. OnGoal wants to make this area more of a walking campus, more like downtown and the Power and Light District in that regard.

The interesting part for me, was the fact that the members of OnGoal were originally brought onto this idea by Lamar Hunt, who was looking for investors for building a soccer specific stadium. So OnGoal basically came in originally as real estate investors.

Heineman ends the interview explaining a bit more about how the plan will work, and hyping the fact that the risk is falling squarely on OnGoal. The plan is a pay as you go plan, and if the district does not reach it's projected potential, then OnGoal is not going to be reimbursed the money that they put in. As Kietzman says near the end, it certainly looks like all the risk is falling on OnGoal.