(CelebrityAccess MediaWire) — Following San Jose, California’s agreement to pay $36.5 million toward Santa Clara County on Monday for preventing a 7,000-seat concert hall from being built for over two years, both the city and the county are back to looking at development plans.
Both city and county officials told the San Jose Mercury News that they hope to break ground as early as this summer on a massive industrial and housing development in North San Jose, and a concert hall at the county’s fairgrounds.
Santa Clara County will be running the numbers again on the planned House of Blues-operated venue to see if the former grand plan still makes financial sense, despite a new cost estimate of $83 million.
Patrick Love, the county’s special projects director, said his office will review all financial assumptions the board considered when it approved the project in May 2004.
“We basically already know it’s going to pencil out,” Love told the paper. “The demographics are as good as they were before. But we have to revalidate the project by updating the feasibility studies. Basically, everything is the same. The city lawsuit put it on hold and we’re resuming where we left off. However, it’s not more costly.”
The board of supervisors will review the study in approximately a month, but officials estimate the litigation raised the theater project’s cost by about 25 percent, mostly a result of rising costs of construction materials, especially steel and cement. –by CelebrityAccess Staff Writers
