Sucks for tax-paying citizens, just like any project like this. As a husker fan, I'm excited. Memorial stadium is iconic, but is not pleasant to be in or to watch games in. The bathrooms are responsible for many Nebraskan children's nightmares.
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There's no public money going into this project as far as I can tell.
The article says half the $450M is coming from private donations. It doesn't explicitly say where the other half is coming from, but I kind of assume the public is on the hook for the balance.
$225M of taxpayer money is indeed a lot, but not unusual. For example, the state of Tennessee is paying $350M to renovate the Liberty Bowl.
That's my assumption as well. New and renovated stadiums/arenas/etc. Are almost always funded by local taxes, despite the teams/promoters/etc. Who reap all the benefits being rich enough to build their own facilities. They hold communities for ransom and promise trickle-down economic benefits that never materialize.
Lincoln specifically botched this with the new arena a few years back. They raised the property value around it so much that businesses couldn't afford the rent. At least while I was there, the area was usually half-empty buildings. And the extra sales tax to pay for it hadn't gone away several years after it supposedly would.