Photo courtesy Cleveland Guardians
UPFRONT
11 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE PROGRESSIVE FIELD DEAL, WHICH CLEVELAND CITY COUNCIL PASSED MONDAY AT ITS MEETING MONDAY night, Cleveland City Council passed legislation greenlighting the Progressive Field Deal, a 15-year lease extension with the Cleveland Guardians that includes roughly $285 million in public subsidies for ballpark maintenance and improvements. Council voted 13-3 in favor of the ordinance, with Ward 8’s Mike Polensek, Ward 11’s Brian Mooney and Ward 15’s Jenny Spencer dissenting. Ward 14’s Jasmin Santana was not in attendance and did not cast a vote. The city’s portion of the deal will include roughly $8 million per year over 15 years, sourced from admissions tax revenue at the ballpark, (revenue that would otherwise go to the city’s general fund), a sports facility reserve fund created as part of the Q Deal, revenues from the Gateway
East parking garage, and about $350,000 per year that remains unsourced and will likely be taken out of the city’s general fund. Cuyahoga County Council has already authorized its portion of the deal. The county agreed to pay $9 million per year over 15 years, which includes substantial annual contributions from the general fund. It also authorized a $202.5 million bond issue to finance what are referred to as “ballpark improvements.” These are the proposed dramatic upgrades at the stadium like the re-imagined Terrace Club and upper deck; not the humdrum capital repairs on escalators, HVAC and plumbing, which the public will also pay for now. Despite the buoyant, demented rhetoric from a few county council members earlier this month —
Marty Sweeney said he thought the deal should be considered the “prototype” for negotiations with pro teams moving forward — most voted in favor of the legislation more reluctantly. The impression was that they were doing so on pain of death, imprisoned by an economic reality in which the teams made all the rules and called all the shots. Councilman Dale Miller said the national system of stadium financing was broken, but that paying $200 million for upgrades seemed more prudent than paying a billion or more for a new stadium down the road. (The fact that the public, not the team, issues the bonds for these mega deals, and must therefore service the debt on them, is one of the big reasons why they’re so lopsided, by the way. Remember that the Q Deal was billed as a
50/50 split between the public and the Cavs at the outset, and in fact it’s now customary for leaders to say that owner Dan Gilbert paid much more than the public because he personally financed additional upgrades in 2018. But once you account for the interest payments, the public is paying far more. The enormous debt load the county took on to finance the Q Deal was one reason why Moody’s downgraded its bond rating, leading to higher interest rates and higher costs for taxpayers.) Prior to Monday’s meeting, city council committees met twice – nearly nine total hours of hearings – to vet the deal. Council members questioned Ken Silliman of the Gateway Economic Development Corporation, (formerly Mayor Frank Jackson’s Chief of Staff), and reps from the Guardians legal, strategy
December 1-14, 2021 | clevescene.com |
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