Loupassi introduces stadium financing bill
Del. Loupassi has introduced a bill to divert the state sales taxes generated by the stadium and other related new buildings from the Shockoe Center proposal to pay the cost of the development:
The developers who want to bring minor-league baseball back to Richmond are proposing to finance a new ballpark in Shockoe Bottom with state sales taxes generated by the stadium and other new buildings. [...] The proposal would apply only to the state’s 4-percent portion of sales taxes generated by the stadium and structures associated with it, potentially hotels and retail and office space. [1]
From today’s Times-Dispatch article about financing for the proposed stadium:
“Meanwhile, the development group has enlisted a powerful ally for their negotiations with the city — state Sen. Henry L. Marsh III, D-Richmond, a former Richmond mayor. He was retained after the November election to provide “government advocacy” with the city, project officials said.”
Interesting, huh?
Can anyone clarify? My reading of the article does not suggest that the tax would go up, but only that the revenues of the existing taxes would be funneled to the ball park. If this is so, where would those revenues normally be directed or is the use of the state sales tax revenues addressed each year in the budget?
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$That might explain why he, McQuinn and the Preacher/Mayor Jones are trying to bring an outsider into the district!
How much money do you think the Politicians will get versus how much the district/city gets?
Let’s see …. the Mayor wants us to pay for a building for a for-profit school and now they want us to pay for a for-profit baseball stadium…… something doesn’t quite smell right.
Especially given the controversies regarding the recently vacated 7th district city council seat.
this is just like the non-dramatic parts of the hit HBO series The Wire! then..we cut to mike-mike getting shot in the hind parts.
Given that most of the footprint of this development is taking place on vacant land and parking lots, it would stand to reason that sales tax money would increase. There’s likely to be increased tax revenue from neighboring businesses and restaurants as well as an overall increase in property taxes.
It sounds like they want to divert taxes generated by the new development. If ya don’t do the new development the tax revenue would not be generated. The arguement that they are taking existing tax revenue seems to be redherring as far as I can tell. Now is not a time to fear the possibilities, but to constructively shape them.
Sweet Jesus, will this stupid idea never die? We’re going to plop this expensive turkey down in the only part of Richmond with the most important archeological site in Virginia since the new discoveries at Jamestown, in an area with highly restricted access, little space, and confounded by the traffic at the Main Street Station transportation center, and now get it paid for with some kind of tax revenue shell game.
This is so transparent, so mindless, so corrupt, and so wrong.
I can hardly wait for that august academic, our former mayor, get up to speed and join Mr. Marsh as shills for this disaster.
Stadium planners want multiuse park (RTD 1/15/09)
So let me get this straight – developers will be given prime land in what appears to be a no-bid situation, develop a ballpark that no one will go to, at least not enough to come close to covering costs, and then we’re going to let them keep the tax money, which is really the only public incentive for having it there.
since when was a flood plain prime land??? someone has already pointed out the difficulty of developing this tract of land peicemeal due to the flooding problems, etc. if you don’t want to see a ballpark/condo/transportation center/etc/etc on this site what do you want to be here????? i can say that walking through there every morning anything will beat the sweet sight of vacant (and unmaintained) parking lots.
Damn, here we go again. Marsh F–K us in Fulton with the Six Street Market Place and now he is going to F–K Church Hill with the Stadium. Damn will we ever learn!!!
“Meanwhile, the development group has enlisted a powerful ally for their negotiations with the city — state Sen. Henry L. Marsh III, D-Richmond, a former Richmond mayor. He was retained after the November election to provide “government advocacy†with the city, project officials said.â€
Interesting, huh?
henry has made a lucrative career pimping poor neighborhoods and the main st boys at the same time. now that doug is out of the way, reform is certainly dead, and the joke is on the majority of richmond voters. bend over!
Given the size and proximity to downtown it certainly qualifies as prime real estate. Building on individuals parcels rather than developing the entire area only requires the buildings to be slightly elevated, enough say for ground level parking. The ballpark, however, will be going below grade, where I believe there is already flowing water and an antiquated drainage system. The developers are claiming that this will allow the ballpark to be used as a catch basin in severe flooding, kind of like a giant sump pump well without the pump. A great example of this can be seen in Battery Park. Doesn’t work so well, does it? You may not enjoy walking by empty space but it least it didn’t cost the city $300 plus million. The stadium is expected to draw a crowd of around 3000 at a time. If you put Club Velvet’s dancers on the roof you’d probably get a bigger crowd. There’s no way this project will cover costs and it will be up to the taxpayers to foot the bill. No one is building this to make the city better, they’re doing it to make money off of its construction. Once it’s built they couldn’t care less what happens, they’ll have made their money, as will all of the sleazy politicos who helped make it happen. I’d like to see the city grow but it won’t happen as long as people like Marsh and the other old influence peddlers in Richmond have power. Also, who decided that it was a stadium or nothing else? Maybe the city should have some sort of competition to come up with different strategies, give the land to whoever comes up with a great idea.
Wall Street Journal: Sports Mania Is a Poor Substitute for Economic Success
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB123214881023691891-lMyQjAxMDI5MzEyNzExNDc4Wj.html
“Tomorrow the Pittsburgh Steelers square off against the Baltimore Ravens, and the Philadelphia Eagles square off against the Arizona Cardinals. The winners will go head to head on Feb. 1 in Super Bowl XLIII.
If there ever was a time to crow about the wonders of rebuilding a city around a professional sports team, this would be it. Three of the four teams remaining in the play-offs hail from cities — Baltimore, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh — that in recent years spent billions rebuilding their downtowns around pro sports facilities and other community “anchors.”
Except that there’s a problem. The teams might be competitive, but the cities definitely are not. All three continue to shrink in population, and have stagnant job markets and crumbling public schools.”
[...] an article in the Wall Street Journal on the Richmond Green Party blog. This is in response for Loupassi and Marsh’s proposal for a Shockoe Bottom baseball stadium, excuse me, “ballpark”. How about keeping baseball on the Boulevard?NO MORE DOWNTOWN [...]
Go to the Hills and Heights blog for more complete information about the Shockoe Center development, which is a lot more than a ballpark.
“Maybe the city should have some sort of competition to come up with different strategies, give the land to whoever comes up with a great idea.”
It did. This is the idea the City selected.
Just to note, Ramzi… If you look at the downtown master plan the primary focus is pedestrian friendly design. Building projects elevated with first (ground) floor parking is far from pedestrian friendly.
Also, if this doesn’t work the taxpayers aren’t stuck with the bill. The developers will be guaranteeing the debt on the project.
Does that include the initial public investment? While I am ok with the intermodal public transportation being done with public funds, I am not happy about the other public monies being spent on this. The “Richmond Ballpark LC” may not ‘envision’ the City being responsible for bond repayments, but the fact is that we have heard that and been burned by that before. Also, where’s the team? The idea of local ownership is nice, but there’s still no real guarantee with that. The proposal talks about VCU’s baseball team playing there, but then I read VCU’s team will remain on the Boulevard at SportsBackers. But, look, here we are going over this proposal at length when we could be discussing about how Armstrong High’s building could be updated. Fundamentally, I am against using taxpayer money on sports and art, except for some public education needs, and Richmond has more important priorities.
RE#19-’”Bonds” means any obligations of a municipality for the payment of money.’
This is directly from Mr. Loupassi’s bill. The developers are not on the hook for a dime of this. This appears to be modeled on the Broad St. CDA which originally specified that the Authority was responsible for the debt incurred and that the City was not responsible for payment. The CDA’s by-laws specified that CDA debt was not city debt. The result was a bond issue that could not be sold. Several months later, City Council wimped out and assumed a’moral obligation’ to pay the debt one year, Future years would come from parking receipts; without the city’s gaurantee, no bonds would have sold. And that was before the bond market collapsed. $60 million plus was spent. The city’s investment has resulted in a net loss of hundreds of parking spaces and there is no reasonable chance that the CDA will ever meet its debt service obligations without continuing taxpayer subsidy. The $60 million for this scheme is just a starter. The city is also expected to acquire the private property at public expense (recent sales suggest the land alone is worth 1-4 million dollars per acre for raw land, plus the cost of acquiring active businesses such as Weiman’s bakery and Hungerford Oil.
The timing here is damning. This proposal is supposedly 15 months old. The Ball Club, LLC has imposed a unilateral deadl;ine of March 1 for City action. An authority must be created and an agreement must be memorialized by ordinance. There are 3 Council meetings left before the deadline and the facts of the case are just now being dribbled out. No papers have been introduced, no issuee have been raised in any Council committees to date. This is going to be jammed through with great haste. As the adage goes – haste makes waste.
There is a Senate companion to Mr. Loupassi’s House Bill. It is patroned by Senator McEachin.
“Guaranteeing the debt”???
“Guaranteeing the debt”?????
Can anyone say Wall STreet Bailout?
And, when are people going to connect the dots and realize that Bank of America (CITY OF THE FUTURE UNDERWRITER) ….might be offering some “surprises” to the City of Richmond very soon?!
And the baseball debt is growing rapidly.
Originally, as in a few weeks ago, this was to be financed by a $40 million dollar bond issue and a $20 hypothetical sale of tax credits. In the Q & A linked above, in item 25 on page 17, there is now a $70 million dollar bond issue; tax credits are no longer mentioned. (The credits were never a workable option here.)
Maybe Loupassi intends to eventually turn the new ballpark into a new jail.
http://www.vagreenparty.org/richblog/?p=233
@#20: This isn’t a NFL team we are trying to attract. A minor league team is easy to attract, especially to a city with a history of minor league baseball. As I’ve said before, I agree that the city has more pressing needs but the funding for this project doesn’t take away from schools or public safety.
@#21: For the bonds to be Tax Exempt they have to be sponsored by a municipality with a tax exempt bonds allocation. Just like any type of loan, the debt can be backed(e.g. guaranteed) by anyone. I was just commenting that the developers have said a number of times that they will be the backers on the bonds. I would certainly have reservations about any change that would put the city on the hook, but I refuse to damn this project b/c of past screw ups. Can’t we learn from our mistakes? Just b/c the bond issuance didn’t work in the past doesn’t mean we should never use them again.
@#25: The tax credit sale is from historic tax credits that would be generated from the renovation of the train shed for the GRTC center. These are dependent on how the renovation takes place and the final plans that are decided upon by GRTC. They are a workable option and I would be in favor of seeing the shed renovated in keeping with the historical fashion.
Please cite specifically where Highwoods as developer has ever said that they assume liability for re-paying the bonds if the revenue streams are inadequate. They’ve ‘envisioned’ the revenue streams will be adequate; one prays that they aren’t hallucinating. Comparing the Powerpoint presentation from the city with the Q & A handout provided by Mrs. Graziano, linked to above, shows some serious morphing in the plan. The bond issue is larger, the tax credits are gone,and the scope of the project has shrunk and grown simultaneously. The original presentation was for a 200000sf HQ-guality office tower, 80000sf of entertasinment/retail space, 300 hotel rooms,250 apartments, 2 parking decks. The more recent information is that this is going to be split into 3 phases- Only Phase I will be completed in conjunction with the ballpark completion; it has 98000sf of mid-rise offices, 160 apartments, 15 condos,133000sf of retail/entertainment space. Phase I is to be structurally attached to the stadium. ( The Loupassi/ McEachin bills only apply to the actual stadium and attached structures.) Phase II is 220 apartments,10000sf retail and a parking deck. Phase II is the large office building and another parking deck. No timetable is given for the later phases. The site proposed for the large office is almost directly atop Lumpkins Jail. There are several efforts underway in City Council to prohibit development at te Lumpkins Jail site. All this new office space will be competing with the 600,000sf proposed for the Boulevard as area office vacancies are climbing.If minor league teams are so easy to obtain, and I don’t disagree with the premise, then why the rush for a quick approval of a project whose parameters are clearly fluid?
But a shed does not a baseball stadium make ….. nor does the rush for a quick approval make a convincing argument of the merit of the proposal.
ptaylor speaks with great knowledge on this topic and I urge all to share this concern with our elected representatives. Democracy should never be a spectator sport/process. Let’s make that change happen, folks.
http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/article/BALL15_20090114-223038/178610/
“Officials emphasized that the deal would be structured so that private investors — not city taxpayers — would be on the hook if revenue fails to cover debt payments.”
I believe March is a goal not a deadline. IN the SBNA meeting they said that March was the target date for approval in order to have the stadium completed for the beginning of the ’12 season.
Where have you seen an updated site plan? During the meetings I’ve attended Paul Kruegman stated they would be updating the plan based on the knowledge of Lumpkins Jail, which they thought was under 95.
Thank you, Ry, for illustrating my point. The developers are not on the hook for the bonds. The ‘investors’ are the bondholders.Without some assurance of repayment, the bonds are likely to be unmarketable. Note that unspecified “officials” – no names, no quotes – provide the information. It’s hearsay; what counts is what is written in the enabling legislation which has yet to be revealed.
As to March 1, the T-D printed a story on 1/7 containing the following:
“A potential local ownership group aiming to return professional baseball to Richmond hopes to purchase a franchise by March 1. Prospective buyers first, however, require the community’s assurance of a new stadium.” Note the curious use of the word ‘require’. Ball Club, LLC can request city approval before pursuing a team, but they are hardly in a position to ‘require’ anything of the city.
My remarks on Lunpkins Jail are based on the location of the excavations, which are immediately north of the old Seaboard freight house, which Highwoods power point presentation showed as the location of the high-rise. There has been no new plan offered as far as I know.
ptaylor, I think you are taking too much out of a RTD article’s wording. First, you are correct that a guarantee for repayment is necessary for bonds to be marketable, that is why the investors will have to guarantee the bond repayment. (and it will likely be further guaranteed by the issuing bank)
If I was going to put my money on the line I would require the approval of a new stadium before investing my money. Now, it doesn’t say they require the city finance the stadium, just that it is approved. Again, the March 1st deadline is based on the baseball season, most ball teams are going to be sold in the off season.
The powerpoint is admittedly, by Paul Kruegman, old. Highwoods based their site plan on where they thought the historic site was. They were not allowed to discuss the plan with the Slave Trail Commission before the RFP was won, so they planned to work with ‘those with vested interests in the site’ to determine a suitable development for the site and then rework the site plan.
In a private email to the developers, Ellen Robertson says she and Mayor Jones will decide whether the project goes forward. Wonder what the community and the rest of council think?
Ron: Do you have this letter in your possession and can you reprint it here?
WOW! So when Kathy slipped and called the 7th seat Ellen’s, she was serious. Boy everything is starting to stink.
I have seen it. I think she waited until Kathy was out of the country. Did not copy other members of council.
Must read in this week’s Style Weekly Out of the Park
The deadline has been pushed back to allow for more time for the new administration to review the project. And hopefully to allow the new 7th rep some time…
Also, those with fears or objections to not having a team will need not worry as the team purchase will go through prior to the approval.
http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/article/BALLGAT28_20090128-163805/191298/
The Style article is definitely an interesting read, but I can’t help but feel like Goldman is a tad bit bitter. He is certainly correct about the trouble in the bond market, and I’d venture a guess that it is a reason they decided to push back the date they hoped for approval from the new admin. However, he fails to take into account the state sales tax that will be attributed to the TIF bonds and makes no mention of the fact that the developers will be the guarantors.
It’s interesting to note that City Council’s informal support for the Loupassi / McEachin bills was predicated upon the tax rebates being applicable to either Shockoe or the Boulevard. In actuality, the language of the bills is not site-specific. I find it interesting that today Highwoods PR guy is speaking of the Bostic group’s situation in direct contradiction to Mr. Bostic’s own statements published on Monday. I also noticed that Mr. Boisseau always refers to the Bostic group in the third person.
Has anyone checked into the relative health of these companies considering the “economic failures” that are becoming banner headline daily news?
Ron: Please e-mail me about the letter to which you’re referring. We’d like to file a FOIA for it. letters@styleweekly.com. Thanks.
How do you spell voodoo economics? Now Loupassi is in the act, suggesting that we can pay for all this with “state sales tax” revenue from the project.
In Loupassi’s words, the revenue would come from buildings and businesses which do not now, even exist!! But wait, buildings do not pay sales tax, so revenue would have to come exclusively from ticket sales and food sales. Holt frankfurter, that’s a lot of hot dogs. Citizens will be left holding the “frankfurter” long after the developers are gone.
Baseball on the Boulevard makes sense for everyone except one group. They want us to take our eyes off the “ballâ€. That group consists of those who would either seek to gain financially, or to get a free piece of ground on the Boulevard – essentially cheating Richmond taxpayers out of their excellent real estate.
The attempt to move the Diamond downtown is a smoke screen – attempting to hide the real motives.
VCU wants our free ground on the Boulevard, but who asked VCU? It’s just more Trani greedily grabbing land. Why wouldn’t VCU want our land for free? It’s just another ripoff of Richmond taxpayers.
Who asked Highwoods Properties? They are just trying to make a profit on the backs of Richmonders. It seems that it’s not about the good of our city – just their bottom line.
Who asked Sports Backers? They just want a free venue. Who wouldn’t? Let them build something in Bryan Park or at other available locations. The Boulevard is too important and too valuable.
Ultimately, we’re all unwitting dupes of Wilder on this one because he set all of this in motion as part of what appears to be his Pay-for-Play with Trani. Trani gets free or essentially free land, and Wilder gets $150,000 annually for making it happen – or so it seems.
Citizens Beware. This deal will likely happen. City Council is being sold a bill of goods and some folks are using voodoo economics. Financial newcomers like Ellen Robertson have no idea they are being shown numbers which are likely bogus. Besides, Ms Robertson has been told that she is getting a slave museum, in the trade. Why not? We’ll even throw in a free ride on the Annabelle Lee too!
The companion development for the ballpark in the bottom is a hoax. It is being promoted by very highly skilled and highly paid lobbyists who are accustomed to getting their way. Detailed a few days ago, the $9.5 million in suggested revenue for the downtown ballpark project is false in that it’s just theoretical and will likely never materialize. It’s just pro forma. For them, convincing Council to go along is like taking candy from a baby. Soooo easy.
When all is said and done, there will be a $5-10 million dollar shortfall per year in the downtown ballpark project, and Richmond taxpayers will foot the bill, and will lose the superior Boulevard site in the process.
Imagine this: the downtown baseball guys will get the plum – a $60 million facility at a cost of $200,000 per year. What a deal for them! Please name the person who has attested to the fairness of this ripoff, other than those who benefit monetarily.
Almost no one knows it, but this is similar to same cruel trick that developers of the downtown CDA used to justify new parking decks around the Coliseum. Somebody made up apparently false revenue projections and Council members fell for them. They never materialized and the taxpayers are on the hook for $ millions annually. Council members are ill equipped to deal with folks who present bogus numbers. Ask Bill Pantele, Daisy Weaver, or anyone in the city’s finance department or anyone with the CDA, if we weren’t sold a bill of goods.
Where is Paul Goldman, and where are the other truth tellers when you really need them? The odds are badly stacked against the citizens of Richmond on this one.
Wake up Richmond ! How many times will we continue to let the developers F-ck us before we wake the hell up? When will we stop electing people who are challenged when it come to intelligence? I’m tired, just look at the financial institution, the job market or HELL, JUST LOOK AT OUR SCHOOLS! We continue to elect people who screw us every chance the get! I hope the Justice Department, FBI or Attorney General’s office is paying attention to what is happening in this CITY.