As Sacramento worked to salvage a sputtering plan to develop Cal Expo land to finance a new arena for the Kings, powerful forces in Placer County were quietly evaluating the viability of an Indian-funded arena next to Thunder Valley Casino.

Talk of the Placer arena died about a year ago after a marketing study commissioned by the United Auburn Indian Community concluded the plan wouldn't pencil out financially, said Doug Elmets, a spokesman for the tribe.

"It clearly made no financial sense from the tribe's perspective," Elmets said. "It was rejected almost as quickly as it begun."

The tribe declined to share a copy of the marketing study with The Bee.
While Elmets characterized the tribe's flirtation with an arena as a "flash in the pan," he acknowledged the dance progressed far enough for Kings officials to meet with tribal leaders.

Now, the Kings are widely expected to move the team to Anaheim next season, after a decade of trying to compel the city of Sacramento to build an arena to replace the aging Power Balance Pavilion.

On Thursday, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson will travel to New York in an attempt to convince the NBA board of governors that Sacramento is a city worthy of a pro basketball franchise.

He'll be joined in New York by Tim Romani, president and chief executive officer of the ICON Venue Group, the consultant working with Sacramento developer David Taylor on an arena study due out next month.

"I want the NBA to know that even though we've had failed attempts in the past (at building a new arena), I think it's a new era in Sacramento," the mayor said Tuesday. "Whether the Kings are here or not, our commitment is to go forward with a new facility in the next four years."

The Maloofs, who own the Kings, will also address the NBA's owners this week. They have until Monday to ask for permission to relocate to Anaheim.
The Kings organization had no comment on the aborted Thunder Valley arena plan.

The casino near Lincoln features a temporary outdoor amphitheater during the spring and summer months and a small indoor multiuse facility. But an NBA-size arena clearly would have changed the entertainment and social dynamic of the region.

Tom Miller, Placer County's executive officer, said the United Auburn Indian tribe's interest in an arena wasn't the first time the idea of building the facility in Placer County came up.

It was first broached, he said, when then-Sacramento Mayor Joe Serna was pushing a regional sales tax to finance an arena. Placer County backed away when it became clear counties outside Sacramento would be asked to pay, but there was no interest in exploring arena locations outside the city, Miller said.
When Thunder Valley expressed interest in building an arena, Placer County studied how much it would cost to accommodate the increased traffic on Highway 65.

"Once everybody looked at the numbers, it just didn't seem to be economically feasible," Miller said. "It's not a real easy traffic problem to solve."
The price tag for road improvements came to $600 million, he said.

Miller said he viewed the arena discussion not so much as a way to save the team, but as a "double bonus" – kick-starting needed road improvements and spurring development of unincorporated county land targeted for industrial uses.
The arena/casino concept has worked for the Mohegan Sun, a tribal casino in Uncasville, Conn., where the 9,500-seat Mohegan Sun Arena opened in 2001.
The tribe bought and moved the WNBA Connecticut Sun to the facility in 2003.
Similar to that enterprise, the idea locally was to use a multi-use sports and entertainment facility to draw people to Thunder Valley's 144,000-square-foot casino and ancillary businesses.

Mitchell Etess, chief executive officer of the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, said the arena has helped the tribe widen its base of customers, drawing in new or infrequent patrons.

"It's grown to become on the key drivers of our overall business," Etess said. "It really has brought a broad cross section of customers."
The arena, which holds 12,000 people when configured for concerts, sits in the middle of a complex of hotels, shops, restaurants and 364,000 square feet of gaming floor space.

WNBA games make up 17 of about 130 events annually, Etess said. Next weekend's shows feature comedian George Lopez and recording artist Ricky Martin.