Jul 1, 2009 6:13 pm US/Eastern
County, Marlins Reach Deal On Stadium Financing
Marlins Agreed To Add $6 Million To Current Deal
Additional Payment Needed Because Of Interest Rates
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
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New rendering of the Florida Marlins Stadium to be built on the site of the now-demolished Orange Bowl.
Urban Design Review Board/CBS
The bulldozers roared to life at the future Miami Marlins ballpark in Little Havana Wednesday. They started peeling back the old sod to make way for all the workers, concrete and steel to come. Marlins president David Samson said, "I tell you, there are workers who will go down in history as the first workers on the new Marlins ballpark and it is something we have talked about for years and it feels great."
The earth started moving on the site just hours after the financial ground almost gave way during a marathon meeting of Miami-Dade commissioners. One of them, Carlos Gimenez, is a vocal critic who said, "This has been a bad deal from the get go and it only gets worse as we go on."
At issue is the $306 million the county pledged in tourism taxes. Those taxes are the collateral needed to secure the bonds to help pay for stadium construction. On Wall Street the county found interest rates on some of those bonds were higher than expected.
So, the county could only secure $300 million in bond financing, not the originally planned $306 million. The Marlins ended the long impasse by promising to cover the $6 million dollar difference if it comes to that. The financing deal passed on a 9-3 commission vote but critics loudly said the county is being saddled with the lion's share of the bill for the half billion dollar ballpark.
Gimenez said, "It (the deal) is also putting the general fund at risk at a time when we are getting less and less money into that fund, which basically funds our basis services. In short, he believes taxpayers will still end up directly picking up part of the tab for the construction project.
Mayor Carlos Alvarez sharply disagrees. He told me, "A lot of people have tried to give misinformation, telling people their ad valorem taxes are going toward construction of the stadium. That is a lie." Alvarez didn't stop there.
He said, "It would be embarrassing if that franchise left the community after so many years because we could not enter into a public-private partnership and build a stadium for the benefit of our community."
The debate will be never ending about whether the price tag is worth it but soon enough that debate will be framed by the steel and concrete rising from the old Orange Bowl site to frame the outline of the new Marlins stadium. Opening Day is set for the start of the 2012 season.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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