More than a year to the date music venue Red 7 shuttered its doors, Mayor Steve Adler announced a plan to financially buttress the city鈥檚 live music spots in the form of a $10 million 鈥渕inibond.鈥�
鈥淭his is going to give us the support we need to try to crowdsource, in our community, a $10 million fund to help preserve some of our music venues,鈥� said Adler before the start of an Austin City Council meeting Thursday. 鈥淲e will not be the '' much longer if we continue to lose live music venues.鈥�
The bond program would be run through , a venture capitalist-backed startup based in San Francisco, after Adler announced that Austin had won a competition though the company to help fund local projects. Winners receive help from Neighborly, in the form of marketing and legal services.
Investors will have the opportunity to buy a portion of the bond 鈥� for example, purchasing a $500 stake in this Austin music venue 鈥渕inibond.鈥� Adler emphasized that this would be at no cost the taxpayer, unlike usual municipal bonds.
鈥淭his is not funded by government. This is not a tax increment concept in any way. This is a crowdsourced fund,鈥� he said.
The Mayor also stressed that there remain many details still to be worked out 鈥� including which music venues would benefit from this, and what kind of return investors could receive.
