Concerns that a coveted national rodeo event would saddle up and leave town before it even arrives kept alive a $4 million request by the Lancaster Event Center to pay for site improvements Wednesday.
The Lancaster County Visitors Promotion Committee, on a 4-2 vote, recommended that the grant request be approved by the county's Board of Commissioners next month.Â
The event center is set to host the National High School Finals Rodeo four times in the next decade, beginning in July 2020, but costly surprises in the buildout to accommodate the 10-day event outpaced the previous $3 million grant.Â
Lancaster Event Center Managing Director Amy Dickerson pitched the additional $4.05 million request to the committee as a backstop, allowing the center to get a loan to pay for improvements necessary to hold the event in Lincoln next year.
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The latest grant, if adopted by the county board, would be paid out over six years beginning in 2022.
"This is a special challenge that we have because it's an exceptional opportunity," Dickerson said during the special committee meeting scheduled to consider the grant request.
Later, Dickerson called the committee's decision "exciting news" that shows community support for the center and the event.
The four national finals rodeos, slated for 2020, 2021, 2026 and 2027, could generate a total of $64 million in local spending based on an extrapolation of the economic impact for the National Junior High Finals Rodeo held in Des Moines, Iowa.
Most of the 1,700 competitors and their families will travel to Lincoln from out of state, and in some cases, other countries, event center officials said.
The latest grant request is a large and unusual ask of the committee comprised of hospitality and amusement leaders who recommend how tax money collected on hotel stays should be spent.
The Visitors Promotion Committee had previously created a guideline recommending organizations not be able to ask for more funds while they were still receiving the payout from a previous grant.Â
To help the event center secure the rodeo, the committee approved the initial $3 million grant request in 2016. The center will receive its last payment from that grant in January 2020.
"If they had initially come to us with a $7 million request, would we say yes to that?" asked committee member Roland Morgan of Lincoln Hotel Group before the vote.Â
In her pitch to the committee, Dickerson suggested that the event center set aside any annual profits over $250,000 between 2020 and 2027 to return or reduce approved grant payments.Â
But the committee excluded that from consideration out of concerns that it couldn't be enforced and the difficulty of accounting for profits of the event center owned and operated by the tax-exempt, nonprofit Lancaster County Ag Society.
Lynne Ireland of History Nebraska voted no, expressing concern that approving the grant request would set a bad precedent for other groups asking for additional funds while still receiving grant payments.
Aaron Stitt, general manager of the Courtyard by Marriott, also voted no, saying during the meeting that it remained unclear where the center would get the additional funding needing to complete necessary improvements including additional campsites and a 3,500-seat covered grandstand for its outdoor arena.
"For me, there has to be something in (the contract) saying, 'We’re going to do our part,'" Stitt said.
Recommendations from the committee are nonbinding, and the four members on the Lancaster County Board of Commissioners will vote to approve or deny that request in June.Â
The county projects lodging taxes will generate $1.8 million next year.