Rockets give in to Eckels

By ERIC BERGER

August 16, 2000 Web posted at: 12:05 PM EDT (1605 GMT)

HOUSTON, Texas (The Houston Chronicle) -- The Houston Rockets yielded Tuesday to changes Harris County Judge Robert Eckels wanted in a downtown arena agreement, but he did not immediately endorse the deal.

Team officials said that meeting Eckels' demands was the only way to move forward with a plan to bring the $175 million arena measure before Houston voters.

"It was a tough decision to make," said George Postolos, the Rockets' chief operating officer. "We did it for the simple reason that we want to stay in Houston."

Efforts Tuesday to reach Eckels on his Florida vacation were unsuccessful.

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But the county judge's aides said he was unlikely to endorse the deal without seeing more documentation than a two-sentence letter faxed to his office that stated the Rockets were prepared to address his concerns "in the manner proposed by the sports authority."

That concern is a "detail" that could be worked out, a team source said.

Top negotiators from the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority, along with two downtown business leaders who support the arena, held a conference call with Eckels on Monday after he sent an inflammatory letter saying the team asked for too much in its negotiations for the publicly subsidized arena.

During the call, Eckels said if the four concerns he outlined in his letter were answered, he could support the deal.

A day later the Rockets agreed to all four points.

"Since we solved his issues, we expect Judge Eckels to endorse the deal," said Ric Campo, chairman of the sports authority's finance committee and chief architect of the deal.

Eckels is one of four key opinion leaders -- along with county Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt, NFL expansion team owner Bob McNair and Houston Aeros owner Chuck Watson -- who the Rockets have said must support the agreement before they agree to call a referendum for the Nov. 7 election.

All have had a copy of the 30-plus page letter of agreement since late July. Bettencourt has asked for more information on some points, but no one, other than Eckels, has publicly asked for specific changes.

Campo appeared to draw a line Tuesday, saying there would be no more renegotiating the agreement with the Rockets, who sports authority members said "bent over backwards" to accommodate Eckels.

"My view is that we're done making changes to the deal," Campo said. "It's time to bring it before voters."

The four concerns raised by Eckels are:

*Renovations: In the agreement, the sports authority promised to use its "excess funds" to renovate the arena after its 15th year.

Eckels worried that this bound the sports authority to spend all extra money it collected -- beyond paying off baseball, football and arena bonds -- toward the renovations. Further, he was concerned that such payments might extend the arena bonds longer than their 30-year term. This was clarified so that the sports authority had considerable discretion on what its excess funds were and so that the bonds would not be extended beyond 30 years.

*National Hockey League team: Eckels wanted to protect the Astrodome complex in the event the county wanted to build a hockey rink and attract a team. The agreement's pledge that the city or sports authority will not offer any prospective or current owners of an NHL team an advantage over Rockets owner Leslie Alexander will be limited to the downtown arena.

*Taxes: Because the sports authority cannot bind other government entities from instituting taxes, it had agreed that if unforeseen taxes are placed on the arena they will automatically be rebated to Alexander. This is clearly designed to dissuade a tax being placed on the arena. Eckels wanted the amount of any such tax rebate to be capped at the Rockets' rent payment, or $8.5 million a year, which it will be.

*Noncompete clause: The agreement included a wide-ranging noncompete clause that essentially precluded the sports authority and city from financing or assisting a competing venue with 5,000 or more seats. Eckels wanted this clause to exempt the county-owned Astrodomain complex, its lifetime to be 10 years instead of 30, and for it to only extend 10 miles from the arena. All his conditions were met.

Of the concerns, two clearly reflect Eckels' interest in keeping the door open to building a hockey arena at the Astrodomain in the future.

The clarification regarding the NHL team allows the county to sweeten the pot to entice any owner it pleases to the Astrodome, including Watson, who has proposed building a hockey rink inside the aging Dome.

And the noncompete clause, which was expected to be the most difficult concession for the team to make, now exempts the Astrodome complex entirely, leaving the county to pursue whatever funding sources it wants to build any sort of arena at the location.

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