California could be trying to sell some of its most popular landmarks?

San Quentin Prison

The state of California is nearly bankrupt, with a $24 billion budget deficit. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has said that something has to be done to fix the problem and his plan called for the sale of some of California’s most popular landmarks.

On the block would be San Quentin State Prison, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and the California State Fairgrounds.

The governor said that the sale of these landmarks as well as four others and eleven office buildings around the state could raise $3 billion for the state. This would help the budget after the proposed cuts in education, welfare, parks, and health care are passed through.

Unfortunately, it could take years to complete sales of these sites. That means that it would do nothing for the immediate problems the budget deficit is causing. The other problem with the sale of the real estate is the downturn in the Californian real estate market.

Robert Griswold, a real estate author and one of the members of the planning commission of San Diego said, “Fundamentally, this is the wrong time to do this. The market is down and is now in the favor of people looking to buy these properties and not in the favor of the state.”

San Quentin Prison sits on 400 acres on the San Francisco Bay and was built in the 1880′s. The landmark could fetch as much as $1 billion for the state. The idea is not to turn the prison into a museum or some other historical site for visitors, most real estate buyers would tear the prison down and build condos or some other pricey real estate on the land.

But what about California’s death row inmates, you know, the ones still housed at San Quentin? At this time it is unclear where they would go. There are currently 5,150 inmates at San Quentin and moving them could cost the state millions of dollars and would take away from any of the proceeds made from the sale of San Quentin.

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum hosted the 1932 and 1984 Summer Olympics and can seat 100,000 people. The state expects a buyer for the Coliseum to continue using it as such. It does not currently have a price tag, but expectations are that the sale will take up to three years.

This isn’t the first time that the sale of landmarks have been considered by a government. The London Bridge was sold to Lake Havasu City, Arizona after, in 1962, it was deemed no longer suitable for the amount of traffic going across it. It was put back together in Arizona and has been there ever since.

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