Published December 2004

NASCAR: Before being
sold, let’s shop around

Like many men, I shop like a hunter. Surveying the landscape of the mall, I look for movement or some sign to tell me where the shoes I have in mind might be. Once I lock in on the target, my aim is true, and I shoot to kill. Shopping for me is measured in how quickly I find the prey, buy it and get back into my car.

Such an approach to shopping never contemplates meandering through other stores on my way out of the mall. After all, I already have merchandise in the bag that suits me just fine. My shopping technique precludes me from seriously considering all of the choices sometimes, but I’m still happy with all of my shoes, so I guess it works.

In a strange way, the NASCAR track debate reminds me of my own shopping patterns. There is a real risk that we may buy a nice pair of shoes in NASCAR only to realize later that there were better deals that we no longer have the cash to buy.

With a NASCAR track, of course, there are no returns. In fact, the average Snohomish County resident probably won’t have the political will or budget to support another publicly funded project of similar scale for a long time. It stands to reason, then, that we ought to do a bit of window-shopping before we jump into auto racing.

To that end, our first stop ought to be with the four-year university plan. No doubt something like the University of Washington’s Tacoma branch campus would be a positive for Everett and Snohomish County as a way to import academically inclined 18- to 22-year-olds — or at least retain those from the area.

But the idea that the cash-strapped state is going to be the answer to the four-year university need is probably a dream at best right now. Most likely, the private college and university market will deliver the answer, as is already happening with Puget Sound Christian College, which is actively educating 200 students in Everett today who would otherwise have no reason to be in town.

As long as we’re wandering through the mall, then, what about Paine Field? Maybe we ought to stop our shopping cart there for a moment.

To be sure, the jury may still be out on the airport and the viability of commercial passenger service there. A study of demand would need to be completed to measure whether the timing is right to build the necessary infrastructure for expanded use. And you’d need a carrier or two to show up and prove the investment.

But if a study shows what many in the business and real estate community have been sensing for some time, passenger air service would be a viable economic stimulator of its own in many direct and indirect ways.

At a minimum, it passes the sniff test of a government project by being an investment in infrastructure to facilitate business rather than an investment in a retail entertainment venture that competes with it. Remember, the Everett Events Center is more than a hockey arena. It’s a conference center, public ice-skating venue and a meeting place that supports the community and business as well. So far, the NASCAR track has only presented ball fields that convert to parking lots as the community benefit if you aren’t a race fan.

People change their entertainment spending patterns all the time, too. The fairly narrow potential other uses for a NASCAR track are such that if auto racing loses its luster 15 years from now, there goes the lease commitment from the International Speedway Corp., and the public is hosting swap meets at a fraction of the rent and economic benefit.

There’s precedent nearby, too. King County is still paying for what once was the Kingdome, for example, primarily because spending patterns among sports fans moved away from domed stadiums before the debt was paid off.

The airport has some other things going for it. To begin with, the county already owns it. No need to use government taking powers to acquire new land.

Second, demand is probably going to increase. The dip in air travel in recent years was a result of terrorists’ use of airplanes as their weapon rather than some precipitous natural drop in customer demand. And with new, $1 million airplanes soon coming to the market, air travel for business types becomes much more affordable, putting more planes into the air.

More airplanes and more convenient travel translate into more demand for a serviceable passenger air terminal at Paine Field closer to the 1.5 million people who live within a 45-minute drive. In fact, regional carriers are the ones turning a profit serving these secondary markets these days, suggesting that the future of air travel points to the Paine Fields over the big hubs, anyway.

Those of us in the commercial real estate business know what economic opportunities Snohomish County is unable to compete for because it lacks a serviceable airport, so the spin-off of economic activity — and job creation from it — is probably underestimated by most casual observers. Aircraft, in general, are more quiet today, too — particularly the 7E7s that would most likely service regional demand at Paine Field. So the noise issue that is the central concern of Mukilteo residents is tempered to some degree.

Done right, in fact, a modern-day airport built to accommodate commercial passenger service in the post-9/11 world might engineer some efficiencies that would make Paine Field more appealing than Sea-Tac. Picture Orange County, San Jose or Burbank airports designed to meet modern-day security so that passengers move even more quickly through the terminal.

And the third runway plan at Sea-Tac isn’t supposed to accommodate increased traffic there. Rather, its primary function is to improve safety and on-time arrivals and departures. Even with Sea-Tac’s third runway, then, most air travelers in the north Puget Sound still face a future of spending more time in their cars to get to the airport than the flight times to their regional destinations.

None of this means NASCAR is a bad thing. But as long as we’re in the market for a big public project, maybe we ought to look around a bit before we grab NASCAR and run out of the mall.

Tom Hoban is CEO of Everett-based Coast Real Estate Services, a property management and real estate advisory company specializing in multi-family and commercial investment properties. He can be contacted by phone at 425-339-3638 or send e-mail to tomhoban@coastmgt.com.

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