"Every hot dog, beer purchased in that district will go
toward the stadium."
Plans to fund the planned new
Tampa Bay Rays stadium near Ybor City are emerging.
"Every hot dog, beer
purchased in that district will go toward the stadium."
Taxing hot dogs and beer to
pay for a stadium? Now you got my attention.
From the TBBJ:
A group of business leaders
working on efforts to move the Tampa Bay Rays to Ybor City is evaluating
different funding strategies for the proposed $892 million, glass-domed
ballpark.
Ambassadors of Rays 2020, led
by Tampa attorney Ron Christaldi and Chuck Sykes, CEO of Sykes Enterprises,
spoke during a Rotary Club of Ybor City meeting on Sept. 12 and addressed the
questions the Rays face, which primarily are concerns with how the stadium
would be funded
.
"[We will be] working
with the landowners to create a CDD type of environment for an entertainment
district. Every hot dog, beer purchased in that district will go toward the
stadium so it's not taxpayer money, it's a fee-based structure," said
Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken Hagan, the county's chief negotiator with
the Rays.
The entertainment district tax
will be used to land more funding.
"We have to be extremely
creative for the necessary funding. The goal on that is to cast as much of a
wide of a net as possible," Hagan said.
We can be creative too,
especially when it affects my hot dogs and beer. I must have a hot dog at every sporting event
I attend. I am not making this up.
Don't tax my weenie!
(Credit rones,
openclipart.org)
Just how many weenies will
have to be sold to pay for the new Rays stadium?
The latest stadium cost
estimates are $892 million, and the Rays, whose estimated value is $900
million, stated they will contribute $150 million to the overall costs. That
leaves $742 million to be funded. By hot dogs?
The new stadium plans call for
28,216 seats, which is a reduction in the total capacity of Tropicana field,
where attendance average is reported to be 14,700.
Using some simple math (and
zero interest rate to keep it simple for now), assuming that every game sells
out for 82 home games a year, and everyone is like me, needs a hot dog at every
game, and $1 from each weenie "purchased in that district will go toward
the stadium", it will take at least 320 years to pay off the stadium.
Or we could pay off the CDD
bonds in 32 years... if we charged a $10 fee per hot dog.
Thats a lot of weenies that
are bought with "not taxpayers money", which begs the question...
exactly whose money is it buying weenies?
Isn't this a reductio ad
absurdum argument?
Of course it is. As is the
whole notion on funding the stadium with a CDD.
According to Wikipedia,
A community development
district (CDD) is a local, special-purpose government framework authorized by
Chapter 190[1] of the Florida Statutes as amended, and is an alternative to
municipal incorporation for managing and financing infrastructure required to
support development of a community.[1]
Florida has hundreds of CDDs,
and they are meant to provide an alternative to funding the development of new
communities from the traditional municipal governance. The developer takes a
lead role in funding and developing the infrastructure, which in turn are paid
back in fees from the residents of the development, which has been bonded out
by the developer as municipal bonds. The developer is not paying for it. The
new residents are.
CDDs can go bad, as they are
typically dependent upon a 20 to 30 year payback schedule. Developments don't
always go as planned, and Florida has at least 100 CDDs that are some form of
financial distress.
Field of Schemes noted some
inconsistencies with the CDD plans.
There are, however, a couple
of problems here. One is that it’s not entirely clear whether a new stadium is
the kind of amenity that actually makes nearby land more valuable — and if it
doesn’t, you could end up seeing property values plunging as nobody wants to
buy land that comes with a whopping surcharge, or even see the CDD go into
default, as has happened from time to time. So if this does end up part of a
Rays stadium funding plan, it’s going to be hugely important who’s on the hook
for those payments if the CDD money falls short.
Then there’s that puzzling
statement by Hagan that “every hot dog, beer purchased in that district will go
toward the stadium.” He also said “we are not going to raise sales taxes,” so
presumably there won’t be an actual surcharge on sales of stadium-district
beer, just on property taxes for stadium-district beer gardens. Which is a
pretty indirect and hand-wavy way of ensuring that the stadium will in some way
pay for itself, probably because without the hand waving, it’d be immediately
clear that there aren’t enough windfall hot dog profits to build a
near-billion-dollar stadium.
So what happens when a CDD
goes bankrupt?
New investors developers may
take over. They may be able to buy the defaulted bonds at firesale prices, and
develop new properties at much lower costs, reducing the value of other
district properties, thus property tax revenues.
Of course, as with most of
these schemes with CRA, TIF, and CDD, the ultimate backstop is the taxpayer.
City of Tampa and Hillsborough County will be at risk of over a billion dollars
to take over a failing CDD as central to the plans of the area as the new Rays
Stadium.
Don't be surprised, as the fat
cats behind the Rays Stadium are aligned with many other schemes to enrich
themselves at the taxpayer expense. If there is one thing that is near
unanimous across Tampa Bay, it is the fact that a vast majority of Tampa Bay
residents do not what their hard earned taxes spent on sports stadiums.
Yet here we are again,
politicians and business leaders ignoring the people the "serve".
Who's among those behind the
Rays funding plan?
Chuck Sykes, whom we've
documented as one of the lead cronies behind the special interest lead All For
Transportation Transit 14% sales tax increase now on the November ballot in
Hillsborough.
Then there is this, again from
the TBBJ:
"We are talking to
businesses that aren't here, tourism-related companies, talking to those kinds
of companies, but also because of Brightline and that connection from Tampa to
Orlando, we are starting to talk to more businesses along [Interstate] 4 even
into Orlando," [Rays 2020 Ambassador Mike] Griffin said.
"The fact that walking
distance from here we can [or will] literally walk to a train that's privately
funded and be in Orlando in a half hour, that's really exciting," he
added.
Griffin, on the thinking track
of transit, also mentioned how important it is in general to have different
modes of transit for the stadium.
The site already has parking
within walking distance. More garages we will be built, but the existing
infrastructure is in place, Griffin said. About 18 percent of people who go to
ball games use Uber or Lyft, and it's projected that usage will increase to 30
percent by the time a ballpark is built, Griffin said, speaking on available
parking spaces as well as ridesharing options.
"The other aspect to this
is access to our waterfront. We are very close to our port. I believe we have a
great opportunity to really open up our waterways, not just for recreational
watercraft, but the expansion of our water taxi service to that vision of being
able to get to this ballpark without ever stepping foot in a car is real,"
Griffin said. "They do it in Miami, I'm sure we can do it here."
Lots of big plans and big
talk. This sounds similar to Tampa's nearby Vinikville, Water Street, which has
similar big plans and big talk, but little to show, about new business and
companies relocating and expanding around downtown Tampa. Now there is more
development around downtown Tampa, diluting the market.
Brightline's plans do not
include any rail that will "be in Orlando in a half hour". That's not
"really exciting". That's a lie.
This passage just confirms the
linkage with the All for Transportation Transit Charter Amendment on the
November ballot in Hillsborough. There is no parking nearby the proposed Rays
Stadium. They won't be selling out those 28,216 seats unless they fix that
situation. They are expecting this
transit boondoggle to save the day.
Something tells me more than
my weenies are at risk.
You might also ask, who is the
weenie?
If you have to ask, you are
the weenie.
Posted by EyeOn TampaBay at
8:25 AM
This post is contributed by
EYE ON TAMPA BAY. The views expressed in this post are the blog publisher's and
do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher of Bay Post Internet.
