Understanding Development: the New Atlanta Stadium —By Princewill Odidi

Princewill Odidi|16 June 2016|7:15am

Sometime in 2006, about ten years ago, a good friend of mine, an Atlanta Congressman called and said he was around my office neighborhood, and requested to meet with me if i was available.

I advised him to come up. After exchanging pleasantries, he kept viewing the city surroundings from my glass windows and taking pictures.

I queried, whats the picture taking all about? He answered, my friend, in the next 10 years, this is the place to be in Georgia.

He proceeded to reveal to me that the City Councils development master-plan for the next ten years was out. They have decided to build a new 75 thousand seater stadium within my office vicinity by 2016.

At first it was laughable, an African man as I am, what has 2016 got to do with 2006 i queried? Thats  a longtime I added, he laughed, and said I am a three term congressman, in developments like these one, time flies.

Mercedes-Benz Stadium is an under-construction retractable-roof, multi-purpose stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, that will serve as the home of the Atlanta Falcons. The total cost is estimated at $1.4 billion. Mercedes-Benz Stadium is set to be the home of Super Bowl.

Did i hear you say the home of the Super Bowl? This will make Atlanta Americas no 1 City.

Meaningful development is meaningful planning.

All these houses and plots of land around here he continued, will increase by almost 500% in ten years when the stadium construction will begin. He advised, be wise my friend, if you are interested in property, this is the time to invest. If this where stocks, this is what we call insider trading.

By 2007, City of Atlanta  went ahead to set up an Infrastructure remodeling escrow account, a percentage of the Citys annual budget was diverted to this account yearly, building up required capital for this investment in ten years time thats 2016.

Several financial funds, including mutual funds keyed into the development savings account offering higher interest rates and in less than 8 years, the city has raised the required the funds to execute the project. 

So when word went round in 2014 that ground breaking for the stadium would commence December 2015, property value rose to over 700% within the vicinity. Today, construction of the stadium is almost 60% completed.

Now, why am i writing this piece? Last week driving to office, i noticed several rehabilitation work going on simultaneously within the vicinity. The department of water resources have started laying larger water pipes in the area so as to increase the volume of water pumped to the area, to accommodate over 75,000 people expected to  be at this side of town for football games on weekends. 

The department of works has also started expanding all the feeder roads, and inner city road networks, The department of health resources have started work on a new Emory Hospital within the vicinity of the stadium to create capacity for health concerns and emergencies with such large populations visiting this side of town on weekends.

New police precincts are being built to boost capacity of law and order, food chain restaurants have suddenly sprung up all over the area, the city has just extended the blue line train to pass very close to the stadium thus reducing the number of people coming to games with cars,and improving transportation networks.

New Ultra morden petrol stations are being built within the vicinity to carter for increased fuel consumption before and after the games, several other projects linked to the stadium are coming up daily. As the stadium is about being completed, one of the largest sports federation in the United is about buying over the falcons and higher more expensive players, thus attracting more advertzing income during games, bringing more income into the city.

So when I write trying to explain that development of capital projects like superhighway and seaports are not projects you need to hurriedly complete this is what i mean.

The main reason why development projects fail and will continue to fail in Nigeria is because of the politicization of development, with little or no long term structural planning and sectoral integration. The functional efficiency and planning required to enhance sectoral integration is not really the responsibility of the politicians,  its the job of the bureaucrats, however, in Nigeria today, politicians do not listen or take advice from bureaucrats, the bureaucratic machinery have been reduced to pawns in the chess game of political manipulations, thats why projects fail.

  So both the superhighway and Seaport are laudable projects, but it requires at least a decade committed planning, identifying development indicators and subsidiaries that will help this infrastructure to generate income, and in some cases, this establishments most of which will be business subsidiaries and supporting frameworks are stand alone investments that also require time to build and adequate planning.

If this stadium where to be built in Nigeria, government will easily  identify the land, contract the construction, commission it before the political term is over, and from the first games, they whole place will be jam-packed, traffic, no medical services, and everything start going wrong.

Development is no magic, it is only meaningful when the structures have direct bearing and integration with the people. Development requires proper planning, once politicized and rushed, it fails.

I do not claim to have a monopoly of knowledge on this matter, I always stand to be corrected especially on policy matters which i may not have access to the plans in place, but i am schooled enough in development economics to identify strains in project development and to offer meaningful and unbiased suggestions.  As a people we can get it right, only if we decide to do it right.

Princewill Odidi
Is a Development Consultant writing from Atlanta.