A few more details have emerged as part of an arena and land-swap plan currently being considered by city and state fair officials. A plan laid out by developers Gerry Kamilos and David Taylor calls for mixed-use private development of city-owned railyards land and the current state fairgrounds site. That development would help finance a $400 million sports and entertainment complex downtown and new fairgrounds in North Natomas, according to documents the city released late last week. The "Sacramento Convergence" development team, which includes Macquarie Capital, would invest $600 to $700 million in private equity and debt in the project. The developers also propose other funding mechan

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson's arena task force will focus on giving all proposals a fair hearing over the next four weeks, an arena team leader said Thursday. Four task force subcommittees on finance, transportation, site evaluation, and business and community impact will collect more detailed information from the development teams that have pitched seven arena options. The subcommittees will also consider renovating Arco Arena, the current home of the Kings, and a previous proposal to build at Cal Expo, said Chris Lehane, co-chair of the Sacramento First Task Force. Subcommittee work will not be public. The information gathered will be used to create a scoring matrix to weigh the pro

Sacramento City Council members and the National Basketball Association are angry or unhappy with comments made Tuesday by the mayor's arena team leader. Several council members are upset after Sacramento First Task Force co-chair Chris Lehane seemed to be speaking on behalf of the city when he called the NBA's previous attempts to get an arena built here "air balls" and made other comments on the organization's website blog Tuesday morning. Council members Ray Tretheway and Rob Fong responded to Lehane's comments at the end of Tuesday night's City Council meeting. "I was terribly embarrassed by the disrespectful message that publicly humiliated the commissioner of basketball that came

Denver's mayor was in town Tuesday to talk about downtown arenas and the need for strong mayors — two subjects close to Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson's heart. Building an arena downtown could help reinvigorate Sacramento's core, if the success of Colorado's capital city is an indication, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper said during the Downtown Sacramento Partnership's annual State of Downtown Breakfast. Last week, would-be Sacramento arena developers outlined seven proposals for a new "sports and entertainment center" in response to Johnson's request for such proposals. All but two were proposed to be built downtown. The same day, a Sacramento Superior Court judge issued a tentative ruli

The ongoing drama over a new Sacramento arena was kicked up a notch Thursday when a consortium of investors and local developers, together with the NBA, proposed a complex real estate deal involving the Railyards, Cal Expo and Arco Arena. Whether or not that deal eclipses all the other proposals on the table remains to be seen. But regardless of which arena proposal ultimately becomes reality, it will be a game-changer for Sacramento. Just how much depends on which of seven proposals the city and the Sacramento Kings' owners agree on. The Maloof/NBA proposal involves real estate deals that would lead to Cal Expo being sold to private developers for a mixed-use neighborhood, Arco Arena an