Field of Schemes

February 28, 2006

Marlins execs will meet with damn near anybody

Latest stop on the Florida Marlins stadium-grubbing tour: Homestead, Florida, heretofore best known for having been reduced to rubble. Homestead officials don't have any money to contribute to a stadium project, which probably rules them out, but they did seem amenable to Marlins president David Samson's stated requirement that any site provide land "with no cost." (Did I mention that that's my requirement for relocating, too? Wait till you see the multiplier effect from my weekly bagel purchases!)

I've long since lost track of all the cities the Marlins have met with in their never-ending search for stadium funds, but fortunately there's this handy online map.

Portland to Allen: Sorry, no spare change

As promised, Portland Trail Blazers zillionaire owner Paul Allen popped over to Portland City Hall on Friday to request that the city bail him out of his arena debts. (Allen gave up all arena revenues to escape his arena creditors last year, and now is cranky that he doesn't have those revenues left for himself.) And also as promised, Oregon elected officials aren't exactly rushing to placate him:

Portland Mayor Tom Potter: "Portland is very interested in keeping the Trail Blazers here. I can't imagine them playing anywhere else. They discussed their financial situation, and we discussed ours. And that was the extent of the conversation."
City Commissioner Sam Adams: "We've been placed on notice that Paul Allen is tired of losing money. ... But we are so behind on basic-maintenance city government. We are critically short on school funding. Needless to say, it's a really awkward time for them to be raising this issue."
Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski: "Just to be very frank with you, they come farther down the line for me on issues that I really want to spend some time worrying about. They're asking, how much money do you have to give us a subsidy, and I don't have any, so that's easy to answer."
City Commissioner Randy Leonard: "Do they want us to make signs that say, 'Support your local Blazers?' I can do that. I'll make a sign, 'Go Blazers. Love, Randy.' Will that help?"

Potter has good reason for not imagining the Blazers playing anywhere else: Their lease ties them to the Rose Garden until 2025.

Vikes launch ad blitz

The Minnesota Vikings are launching a week-long campaign of TV and radio ads touting their request for a $790 million stadium, about two-thirds of which would be paid for by the public. According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

Look for the word "billion" sprinkled everywhere in the ads, which seek to energize the proposed Blaine complex and ultimately raise more cash for the Vikings with a revenue-boosting stadium.

"Northern Lights will be made possible by an investment of $1 billion from Vikings ownership,'' a radio voice proclaims. "That's $1 billion in private investment to create new economic activity and thousands of jobs."

Well, not exactly from Vikings ownership: More than $700 million in adjacent development would be paid for by as-yet-identified "private investors." But hey, who believes what they see on TV anyway?

Welcome to the... Big Oil?

The new $687 million Indianapolis Colts stadium will reportedly be called Lucas Oil Stadium, after the race-car-lubricant company bought naming rights to the building, which is scheduled to open in 2008. Though the stadium is being built by and almost entirely paid for by the public, the naming-rights fee - estimated at between $100 and $120 million over 20 years - will go entirely to the Colts.

February 27, 2006

Mets hearing attendees disguised as empty seats

Today's Empire State Development Corporation hearing on the New York Mets stadium project was over almost before it began: Only two people showed up to testify, both in favor of the plan.

With nothing else to do, there was little to do but pore over the ESDC's "general project plan" for the Mets, and try to squeeze some insight from its thick bureaucratic verbiage. One interesting tidbit: While the new stadium would hold 44,100 fans, 11,900 fewer than the current Shea Stadium, it would "be approximately the same [height] as that of the existing stadium, 145 feet tall at the top of the light poles." In other words, whereas now the 44,000th fan gets a seat somewhere in the back of the mezzanine or front of the upper deck, in the Mets' new state-of-the-art facility they'd be consigned to the back row, a good 30 feet higher than where they started.

[LATE NOTE: Just noticed that another part of the ESDC document claims the new top deck would be "lower in elevation than the third seating level known as the Mezzanine Level at Shea Stadium." So either the new design will have the world's tallest light poles, or one hand at the ESDC doesn't know what the other is talking about.]

It's hard to say for sure, though, since the project plan's promise that "the exterior of the New Stadium is shown in Attachment B, Stadium Design" leads to a page that is, to say the least, a disappointment. Asked what the deal was, ESDC spokesperson Deborah Wetzel said of the design, "We don't have it. We're waiting for the Mets to release it," and theorized that an announcement might be forthcoming by the end of March. Which kinda makes one wonder how the ESDC already knows that it will "recall the past while providing modern comforts and services to the enhancement of the overall game going experience for the fans" - hey, was that Edgar Cayce I just saw walking out of Charles Gargano's office?

March comes in like a committee hearing

Good Jobs New York reports that four public hearings are now set regarding the proposed New York Yankees and Mets stadiums:

Today, 4-6 pm: Empire State Development Corporation hearing on the Mets stadium, Flushing Town Hall, 137-35 Northern Boulevard, Queens
Thursday, March 2, 4-6 pm: Empire State Development Corporation hearing on the Yankees stadium, Hostos Community College, Main Theatre, Building C on the first floor, 450 Grand Concourse, Bronx
Thursday, March 9, 10 am: Industrial Development Agency hearing on selling $930 million in Yankees stadium bonds, 110 William Street, 4th Floor, Manhattan
Thursday, March 9, 1 pm: City Council committee on planning, disposition and concessions committee hearing on the Yankees plan, City Hall council chambers, Manhattan

This could be the beginning of the endgame for the two projects, with the council legally required to give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down (or thumbs-up with modifications) to the Yankees plan by April 13; a council vote is also needed on allowing the two teams to repay stadium bonds with "payments in lieu of property taxes," a legal dodge that would allow them to use cheaper tax-exempt bonds - at a cost to city, state, and (mostly) federal taxpayers of about $110 million. The teams are hoping to break ground by May, so it could be a very busy April for Chris Quinn's minions.

Oh, and Good Jobs also reports that the city in planning its first public hearing in April for a "NASCAR track and 50-acre big-box retail center on the West Shore of Staten Island." Just in case you were wondering what you'd do for New York drama when and if the Yanks, Mets, Nets, Knicks, Rangers, Jets, Giants, Devils, and MetroStars sagas come to an end.

February 24, 2006

Threatdown!

Spring is in the air, and the thoughts of sports commissioners has turned to shaking down state and local governments for arena boodle:

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly (no, not that one) warned the city of Pittsburgh last week that "the time window for the Penguins to get financing on a new arena is short. I believe the city of Pittsburgh deserves to have the Penguins, but the Penguins also need a new building and they've needed a new one for years. ... It needs to resolve itself in the next couple of months, otherwise they're going to have to look at options."
NBA commissioner David Stern warned the state of Washington yesterday: "Substantial amount of work has been done on the baseball and football fields and I'm here to personally find out whether the same is being considered fairly for the NBA. If not, that's a decision that we can accept, but that we'll have to act on." Just in case anyone didn't get the message, Seattle Sonics (and Starbucks) owner Howard Schultz added: "We want to stay in Seattle. We would think it would be tragic if we had to leave."

The threats were flying so fast and furious that Portland Trail Blazers owner (and Microsoft co-founder) Paul Allen jumped in with a demand for public subsidies of his own, saying accrued debts on the Rose Garden have left his team unable to turn a profit. On the subject of handing over public money to the world's 7th richest man so he can make more profits, Gov. Ted Kulongoski's chief of staff Pat Egan replied: "I don't know what would leave [Allen with] the impression there is an opportunity for broad-scale public financing." Let's see, could it be ... the fact that he just got $300 million worth of it from the state next door?

February 23, 2006

How soon they forget

While the Yankees will cover the $800 million tab for the new stadium, Good Jobs New York says once subsidies are factored in, the project would cost taxpayers $480 million - more than double what has previously been suggested. -NY1.com, Feb. 7, 2006

Under the plan, the Yankees would pick up $800 million of construction costs, with the city chipping in for infrastructure. -NY1.com, Feb. 23, 2006

It's the Yankees' version of the hidden-ball trick: Get a new stadium and quietly pass the costs on to taxpayers. That's the conclusion of a report issued yesterday by Good Jobs New York, which found that, even if the team picks up the stadium's construction costs, the public will face other expenses and lost revenue totaling nearly half a billion dollars. -New York Daily News, Feb. 8, 2006

The Yankees agreed to finance the entire cost of building the new stadium, including any cost overruns. The Yankees put the cost at $800 million. The city and state will spend an additional $210 million for infrastructure improvements and the parkland changes. -New York Daily News, Feb. 23, 2006

As expected, the New York City Planning Commission approved the Yankees' $1.2 billion stadium plan yesterday, by a 12-0 vote, with one abstention. The project now heads for the city council, where, according to the Daily News, "council officials indicated the 53,000-seat stadium faces no insurmountable opposition."

The city also released its Final Environmental Impact Statement in the last few days, a 730-page tome (really frickin' huge PDF file downloadable here) that by law must include responses to all public comments submitted in response to the earlier draft report. Of course, there are responses and then there are responses. My favorite so far:

The council is legally required to act on the stadium plan within 60 days; no word yet on when a vote might come, or whether there will be public hearings first. (Councilmember Helen Foster, who represents part of the Bronx neighborhood that would be affected by the stadium plan, is chair of the council parks committee; I'm awaiting an answer as to whether she plans to hold hearings.) In the meantime, the state Empire State Development Corporation will hold its own hearing on Thursday, March 2, at Hostos Community College on Grand Concourse and 149th St. (not sure what time yet [UPDATE: 4-6 pm]); an ESDC hearing on the $600 million Mets stadium plan is scheduled for Monday, February 27 at Flushing Town Hall, 137-35 Northern Boulevard, from 4-6 pm.

Finally, the Bronx Save Our Parks Coalition is staging a demonstration today at 5 pm outside Yankee Stadium to protest the loss of central public park space and the estimated $481 million in taxpayer subsidies. Some people just can't take "there are no hidden public subsidies" for an answer.

It's baaaaaack! For what seems like the 50th year in a row (it's only been ten or so), the Minnesota state legislature is expected to take up a Twins stadium bill in the session begins next week, and this time legislative leaders are saying the votes might be there to pass it. The sudden momentum for the Twins deal is apparently linked to the recent court ruling that the team is no longer bound by its lease to stay at the Metrodome - even though Twins execs keep playing down talk of the team being relocated or eliminated, state senate majority leader Dean Johnson told the St. Paul Pioneer Press on Tuesday: "I sincerely believe that after a 2006 that saw no action, that Major League Baseball will do something with the Twins - like let them be bought and moved to a new home." Nothing like having an elected official to play bad cop for you.

The main sticking point to the deal apparently isn't the $353 million in sales-tax subsidies it would require, but rather whether Hennepin County voters will get to vote on it in a referendum, as required by state law but which the Twins want a waiver from. Of course, given how Minnesotans feel about taxpayer funding for stadiums, letting the public have its say would likely be the same thing as killing the plan.

Check that, though - the main sticking point is actually that it's an election year in Minnesota, which has both legislators and Gov. Tim Pawlenty doing a careful dance to make sure that nobody gets tagged with the blame for either approving or denying the stadium. From the Pioneer Press:

Ladies and gentlemen, your Minnesota elected officials: Not afraid to take a stand, so long as they don't have to be held accountable for it at the polls.

There's an interesting report in the Dallas Business Journal about the future of the NFL's G-3 stadium fund, which allows teams to withhold visiting teams' share of luxury-seat money, and instead use it to pay off stadium debt. Because that money would normally be shared with players, however, the NFL Players Association is threatening to withhold approval of future G-3 grants until a new labor agreement is settled: "G-3 is done until a [labor] deal is done," said union lawyer Jeffrey Kessler.

Needless to say, this is throwing teams that are counting on league funds for their stadiums into somewhat of a tizzy. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones (due $76.5 million in G-3 money) insists that the league could grant a waiver from sharing luxury-seat money without needing union approval; New York Giants VP John Mara ($300 million requested) just expressed that he was "certainly concerned," because "if we do not get a G-3 vote, that has a serious effect on our stadium." Kessler could always just be blowing smoke here as a hammer in labor talks, but it's definitely a development that's worth watching.

What Henry means is the point I made two summers ago: Baseball teams are now allowed to deduct cupholders but not catchers, which creates an increased incentive to put money into new (or renovated) stadiums instead of boosting profits the old-fashioned way, by putting a winning team on the field. As I also noted at the time, this can be a good thing if you believe that baseball teams should be building stadiums with their own money; not so good if you'd rather they didn't build them at all.

Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf came out with his long-awaited stadium plan on Friday, and it's an everything-including-the-kitchen-sink special: A complex of offices, retail space, restaurants, a hotel, housing, a medical facility, and, oh yes, a stadium, running a total of $1.5 billion. The stadium itself would cost, depending on whose report you believe, either:

[UPDATE: A Business Journal reporter wrote in to say the Pioneer Press numbers include $115 million in road improvements, explaining the discrepancy.]

The rest, for all the other construction that Wilf promised would "bring in millions of visitors each year, add thousands of jobs to the economy and build the area's infrastructure," would come from the ever-popular "private investors." As for what the investors would want to join in the deal, or whether the Vikings would share some of the boodle with taxpayers by means of shared revenues or rent payments, Zygi wasn't sayin', and the reporters weren't askin'. Oooh, shiny.

Joining the usual suspects in the Florida Marlins relocation chase, we now have an official dark horse. It's... go on and guess. C'mon. Pretend you didn't read the headline already. You'll never guess.

Oh, okay - it's Oklahoma City, where Lt. Gov. Mary Fallin says she's been in contact with Marlins execs, and "it's all very preliminary, but I have received some good feedback." Fallin added: "The Marlins have asked for some more detailed information, and we are working to put that together for them." Presumably that packet won't lead with "We're bigger than Albuquerque!"

As for how all this footsie with other cities is playing back in South Florida, some local pols are now considering a referendum to raise sales taxes by 0.5% to raise $160 million or so in additional public money for a Marlins stadium. Given the poll numbers for public stadium funding, they might have better luck trying a different fundraising tactic.

My latest communique in the ongoing skirmish with economist Andy Zimbalist over the New York Yankees stadium plan is up at Baseball Prospectus today. You need to be a BP subscriber to read it in all its glory, but I'll summarize a couple of the new findings here:

Annual city rent receipts from the Yankees are going up, not down. Here are the official rent payments by the Yankees, along with deductions for stadium maintenance and for "planning costs," over the past ten years for which the city has figures:

While Zimbalist and Yankees president Randy Levine might argue that the team's maintenance deductions will grow to the point where it's paying zero rent, that's not where things have been headed of late. Rather, while maintenance costs have edged slightly upwards, the Yankees' gross rent has nearly doubled, thanks to soaring attendance and ticket prices, and a rent formula that charges the team more when it's doing well at the box office. In this light, my estimate that the Yanks would keep on paying $7.5 million a year in rent for the next 30 years - money that would be lost to the city if the team gets rent-free new digs - seems conservative if anything.

Baseball's revenue-sharing deduction may not be worth as much as everyone has thought. While all previous reports have been that stadium costs are fully deductible as expenses - which would result in teams getting back about 39 cents in reduced revenue-sharing payments for every dollar they spend on construction - Zimbalist asserts that teams actually have to amortize their costs over anywhere from 10 to 40 years, which would reduce the value of the deduction by anywhere from 26% to 62%. I've been unable to independently confirm this - the experts I've asked, both inside and outside of baseball, have given me a little bit of "it might be" and a whole lot of "beats me" - but I hope to have a definitive answer pinned down in coming weeks.

Meanwhile, I've managed to compile the most comprehensive estimates yet of just who would be paying what for the Yankees' new pleasure palace. Some of these numbers I've covered here before; others were newly uncovered by the recent Good Jobs New York report:

So there you have it: Taxpayers would be stuck with about $420 million worth of costs (not counting "as-of-right" property tax breaks that apply to all of the Bronx), while George Steinbrenner, depending on how the revenue-sharing break works out, could end up putting in less of their own money than the public. The team, meanwhile, would reap all the stadium revenues like naming rights and luxury suite sales; taxpayers would be left with a thin trickle of new tax revenue that wouldn't even come close to paying the public costs. As bad deals go, that's Buhner-for-Phelps territory.

Quick, what does New York City need more than anything? If you answered "a hole in the head," you're close - instead, it's getting yet another plan for a new sports facility. The New York Times' Charles Bagli reports that the New York Knicks, Rangers, and Liberty are considering relocating Madison Square Garden one block west, to the western half of the Farley Post Office Building, which is currently slated to become the new entrance to Penn Station. The current MSG - the fourth building to hold that name, if you're scoring at home, and the second to be nowhere near Madison Square - would be demolished to make way for office towers.

While the Times reports that MSG is "close to an agreement" with the building's state-sanctioned private developers, Related Companies and Vornado Realty Trust, there are a ton of questions about this plan, which first surfaced back in 2004: How would the developers fit a modern sports arena within the walls of a century-old landmark structure that's even narrower than the current Garden? Would wedging in an arena mean ditching the soaring atrium that was supposed to be the new station's centerpiece, or tower over the building's historic facade? ("Madison Square Garden has already eaten one Penn Station," noted Municipal Art Society president Kent Barwick.) And most important, would MSG and the developers demand the sort of tax breaks that have become de rigeur for these sorts of city projects? If nothing else, the Garden is expected to seek to pick up its $11-million-a-year property-tax exemption and carry it across the street.

All this, and a state Empire State Development Corporation hearing on the Mets stadium coming up on February 27. It's an embarrassment of riches, I tell ya.

A Cleveland city councilman and a local developer are proposing that the city extend the cigarette and alcohol taxes that paid for Browns Stadium, to raise $90 million to stick a "state-of-the-art retractable roof" on top of it. So that Cleveland can get the Super Bowl. Because, you know, if it only had a Super Bowl maybe Cleveland could be the next Detroit.

The Washington Nationals stadium deal cleared another hurdle yesterday, when D.C. CFO Natwar Gandhi said new lease provisions won't interfere with his ability to sell bonds. "Right now, the major issue for me is MLB agreeing the District will not have to pay for [cost] overruns," Gandhi told the Washington Post. "I'll wait to see what they sign. Then I'll certify it." Now it looks like a waiting game to see if the Reinsdorfians can convince Bud Selig to turn down $611 million in public money, in exchange for what's behind Arbitration Door #2.

Another hidden subsidy - and another potential stumbling block - has arisen for the $1 billion stadium that the New York Jets and Giants are proposing to build in East Rutherford, N.J. Not only would the teams be getting access to 65 acres of free land as part of the deal, it turns out, they'd be exempt from paying property taxes for the 520,000 square feet of development they've planned. And that has East Rutherford Mayor James Cassella hopping mad:

And Cassella might be able to do more than hop: According to the AP, "a previous court settlement signed in 1997 with the sports authority gave the borough power to impose real estate assessments 'directly to any private enterprise or developer of any new private facility on the sports complex site.'" It would then be left to the two teams and the state sports authority to fight amongst themselves over who would pay the property taxes - which Cassella estimates at between $10 million and $15 million a year - to East Rutherford. If either the state or East Rutherford ends up holding the bag, chalk up perhaps another $200 million worth of this "privately funded" project that will end up hitting taxpayers' wallets.

I know Minnesota is the state where a governor once recommended that the Twins owner he threaten to skip town to extort a stadium from the state legislature. Still, this is pretty bizarre even by Minnesota standards: Last Monday, current governor Tim Pawlenty and Twins exec Jerry Bell had a sit-down, during which Pawlenty kept raising the threat that the team would be "contracted" out of existence, while Bell tried to talk him down off the ledge. Take it away, Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Patrick Reusse:

Politicians holding guns to their own heads is an inauspicious kickoff to the 2006 Minnesota legislative session, which is expected to consider stadium bills for the Twins (estimated cost: $508 million) and Vikings (likely upwards of $800 million) for the umpteenth consecutive year. Adding fuel to the low, smoldering fire: a Hennepin County court ruling last week that ruled that the Twins are no longer bound by their lease to remain at the Metrodome; though the Twins haven't threatened to leave town and have few options anyway, it would make it harder for local officials to challenge a contraction attempt in the courts, as they did back in 2001.

Still, Bell told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that he's "very dubious" of a stadium bill passing this session, and the Vikings say they don't even intend to gear up their stadium fight until summer. (Traditionally nothing controversial gets passed in the Minnesota legislature in election years.) Meanwhile, local anti-stadium activists are gearing up a campaign to pressure legislators to hold public referendums on any stadium deals, as required by state law, but which the Twins and Vikings are asking the legislature to do without.

So just in case anybody thought that Major League Baseball was going to take my advice and take the new Washington Nationals stadium deal and run, you can now be officially disabused of that notion. MLB COO Bob DuPuy wrote an icy-cold letter to Mayor Anthony Williams yesterday, griping that the D.C. council's imposition of a public cost cap had "seriously disrupted" the "balance of burdens and benefits agreed to by us in mediation," and indicating that baseball would need to further analyze the new legislation before deciding how to respond. Coming on the heels of baseball commish Bud Selig accusing the council of "demagoguery [that] would have made Huey Long blush," it's not exactly a big thank-you bouquet of roses.

But this could all be posturing, right? Surely once they've finished slapping the council's hands for being tardy and disrespectful, they'll sigh deeply and agree to accept that $611 million check, right? Not according to today's Washington Post:

They could try that, certainly, but it seems doubtful in the extreme that any arbitrator would argue that a letter of agreement signed by the mayor trumps a piece of legislation passed by the council. And going to arbitration would only delay the sale of bonds for months more, pushing back the start of construction and making it increasingly unlikely that the stadium wouldn't open until 2009, if not later. But then, baseball owners are all about giving up a bird in the hand for one in the bush.

With all the hullabaloo in New York in Washington this week, I've been sadly neglecting the growing controversy in Seattle, where the Sonics are stepping up their push for $200 million in public cash to either renovate KeyArena or build a new arena elsewhere in the region. On Tuesday, Washington state senate ways and means committee chair Margarita Prentice made headlines by promising: "We will pass something this year." (Prentice also asserted that "ripple effect" of the Seahawks' recent Super Bowl appearance "defies our imagination. Just think of how many restaurants and taverns were filled - all the way up to Alaska." That defies my imagination, certainly, not to mention Phil Porter's.) Other legislators suggested that with a projected $1.4 billion surplus this year, the state might be less reticent about throwing a couple hundred million of it the Sonics' way.

The enthusiasm, though, was by no means unanimous. Several legislators are annoyed that the Sonics are back at the taxpayer trough just 12 years after their last state-subsidized renovation, and making move threats to boot. City Council president Nick Licata warned that levying a permanent tax extension with no public referendum would be an unpopular move in Seattle: "Every poll that I have seen shows that the public is absolutely not behind subsidizing the Sonics, I don't know if the state legislators are aware of that." And while Gov. Christine Gregoire backs extending hotel/motel and restaurant taxes that were first levied to build Safeco Field for the Mariners, her legislative director Marty Brown said city leaders should get to decide how to spend those funds, and cautioned, "I don't know if it's soup yet."

Meanwhile, even the pro-arena-funding side was doing lots of foot-shuffling to justify wanting to spend taxpayer money on behalf of the billionaire owner of Starbucks. Jim McIntire, chief sponsor of the arena bill in the state house, told the Seattle Times that while "generally speaking" he opposes taxpayer funding for pro sports facilities, "having said that, stadiums happen." With a catchy slogan like that, he should sell mousepads.

While New Jersey officials would certainly be glad to have the Nets stay on, it would create an odd situation where instead of the existing Continental Airlines Arena begin demolished, it would be in direct competition for events with the Devils' new taxpayer-subsidized arena in Newark. That sort of thing seldom ends well.

Take out some extra tongue insurance, because the Los Angeles Angeles of Anaheim are here to stay. Yesterday an Orange County jury ruled that when the team signed a lease agreement as part of a deal to get public funds for renovations to Anaheim Stadium, to "include the name Anaheim therein," it meant somewhere therein, not therein as the principal city name, no matter what city officials may have thought at the time. Or as juror Jan Duffy put it more succinctly: "If they wanted Anaheim to be the sole name, they should have put that in the contract."

All of which is probably just as well, as it comes just in time to avert a potential silly name shortage in Orange County.

New York City officials have confirmed what I reported here last November: The $70 million in state money going to build parking garages for the new Yankees stadium is a straight subsidy that taxpayers won't get back. This contradicts team president Randy Levine's claims earlier this week that “all of the parking proceeds will go directly back to the state" (and economist Andrew Zimbalist's similar assertion in a recent New York Times op-ed).

Instead, all parking revenues would go to private garage developers. And they'd apparently need it: According to calculations by reporter Patrick Arden of the New York Metro, " the garage's operator will have to pay a lease of $3.2 million to the city and should not charge more than $25 per car. With 4,700 parking spaces and 81 games a season, a full garage will generate only $9.5 million from the games. That's $6.3 million a year after paying off the lease" - to earn back a private investment of $165 million.

This raises the question of whether the delay in signing up a garage developer - the initial Request For Qualifications was issued in November, and there's been no word since - could be a sign that private developers could be getting cold feet about contributing so much to a project with little payoff. "It doesn't seem feasible for a private developer," our old pal Dan Steinberg of Good Jobs New York told the Metro. "If there's not enough interest from a private developer, we're concerned that the city might get stuck with the tab."

Look out, here come the big guns! MLB is "expected to take a more active role" in the Florida Marlins' nationwide search for stadium subsidies, according to MLB's own news site. And what form will that active role take? "When MLB executives get more involved, they are expected to do so in speaking with local leaders and politicians." Oh, that active role.

One of those local leaders, meanwhile, Miami-Dade County manager George Burgess, has presented a list of stadium options for meeting the Marlins' demands close to home, but he didn't sound overly optimistic: ''None of these options are easy, and many will be viewed as unrealistic," wrote Burgess in his memo to local leaders.

Two days - okay, more like a day and a half - after Tuesday night's bizarre no-we-won't-approve-it, oh-yes-we-will Washington Nationals stadium lease vote by the D.C. city council, details are still trickling out about just what exactly was approved, and what's likely to happen next. Some of what's come to light so far:

Heads are exploding today, but they're not Bob DuPuy's: Late last night the D.C. city council returned to session and approved a modified version of the Washington Nationals stadium lease by a 9-4 vote. (For those counting at home, the votes switching sides were Kwame Brown, Carol Schwartz, and, incredibly, Marion Barry, who earlier in the day had been one of the most vocal opponents of the deal.) Details are still sketchy - the AP reports that the new lease caps "the city's total cost at just less than $611 million," but not who'd be left holding the bag with any overruns on land and infrastructure.

The whole mess now gets dumped back in MLB's lap, which must approve (MLB, that is, not the lap) the new lease by March 6 or the deal is off. DuPuy, MLB's COO, told the AP he'd withhold comment until later today: "I cannot comment until I see it and see what impact, if any, it has on the contract they approved a year ago December. They have amended it repeatedly tonight, so I am not really sure what it says.''

If the new deal holds up, it certainly has the potential to be an improvement on the original one agreed to back in 2004 - though only in the sense that spending $611 million is better than spending $535 million plus a blank check. Given their lack of viable alternatives, it would certainly seem to be in MLB's interest to swallow hard and agree to cover cost overruns, then hightail it out of town with their $450 million check from the team's new, as-yet-undisclosed private owners, who've been waiting patiently in the wings for the lease controversy to be settled. But then, MLB has never been known for making its decisions based on good sense. This one ain't gonna be over till it's over.

The Yankees backlash is in full gear following yesterday's report that their stadium plans would cost taxpayers $480 million. Yankees president Randy Levine insisted to the New York Sun that the Good Jobs New York report was "riddled with errors," and the city would end up "in the black" on the deal; meanwhile, the Daily News' Paul Colford wrote:

The "Yankees source" (almost certainly Levine) might have wanted to actually read the report first: Right there on page 19, it says that "over the past five years, the Yankees have paid the city $26.43 million in rent after maintenance deductions" (emphasis added), and notes that "the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) argues that the cost of maintaining the current ballpark would rise exponentially in the future. ... However, there is no reason to assume that the lease agreement for the new stadium would still require the city to cover maintenance costs." It goes on to note:

In reality, net Yankees rent payments to the city, after deducting maintenance, have gone up in recent years, not down, thanks to the team's record attendance and a lease that ties rent payments to ticket sales. If that trend were to continue, the city's lost rent revenues would be even higher than those projected in the GJNY report, driving the taxpayer cost above the half-billion-dollar mark.

This just in: The D.C. council has voted down the Washington Nationals stadium lease, casting the $667 million project into even more limbo than it was already in. The final vote was 8-5, with Graham, Mendelson, Schwartz, Barry, Catania, Gray, Fenty, and Brown against, Orange, Patterson, Ambrose, Cropp and Evans in favor - that's right, sports fans, the exact same split that was in place before Mayor Anthony Williams spent the last two months tweaking the deal with promises of cost caps and donations to youth sports programs.

More on this tomorrow, including up-to-the-minute coverage of the top of Bob DuPuy's head flying off. In the meantime, check in with Maury Brown's baseball journal for all the news fallout from the council's decision.

The projected public cost of a new New York Yankees stadium just took another upward jump: According to a new report from Good Jobs New York (PDF file here), direct and indirect subsidies "could exceed $480 million," far more than the new tax revenues it would create. And it would create a mere 900 permanent jobs, for a dismal ratio of more than half a million dollars for each new job.

"Compared to other uses of the money, it is difficult to justify spending and foregoing hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue for poorly compensated jobs such as ticket takers, ushers, vendors, restaurant workers, and parking lot attendants," wrote GJNY's Bettina Damiani and Dan Steinberg. "As the largest sports and media market in the United States, New York has terrific bargaining power. This power should be used to insist that the Yankees exhaust every available option - including stadium renovation instead of replacement - with the goals of creating good jobs, lower taxpayer costs, better public health, and more vibrant public parks."

The $480 million taxpayer cost estimate includes many of the rent and tax breaks previously discussed here, and unearthed additional public subsidies as well, ranging from a $22 million mortgage-recording tax break to the costs of relocating a water main. Steinberg says that while by necessity many of the report's numbers are estimates, if anything he thinks they're conservative ones. "We stand by our numbers," he told fieldofschemes.com. "Any controversy around their accuracy is reflective of the city's failure to disclose the true cost of the project."

The Miami Herald's Barry Jackson is reporting that MLB has denied permission for executives of the Florida Marlins to meet with Las Vegas officials about relocating there. This is, to say the least, odd, since even if they didn't intend on letting the Fish move there, just visiting could help spark the so-far-nonexistent bidding war to be the team's new home - and, after all, MLB had no qualms about dropping in on Vegas when it was shopping the Montreal Expos around. So what could it be? A sop to anti-gambling legislators? An indication that Vegas has been promised to some other team (A's? Twins?) as its private extortion grounds? Place your conspiracy-theory bets, and I'll watch for further news.

Today's showdown day for the Washington Nationals lease proposal, and what would it be without a last-minute surprise from council chair Linda Cropp? Last night Cropp announced that she'd be introducing emergency legislation to cap stadium construction costs at $320 million, and possibly to cap the entire project cost at between $589 million and $630 million, after council consultants said Mayor Anthony Williams' cap plan contained loopholes.

As it would take a 9-4 council supermajority to pass emergency legislation, there's a decent chance that neither Cropp's cap and Williams' lease will pass the council at today's meeting - and probably an even better chance that Cropp or Williams will just pull the issue from the agenda yet again to round up more support. If the hearing is televised as usual, you should be able to watch from home here.

Taking advantage of the media's insatiable demand for stories in any way related to the two cities involved in tonight's Super Bowl, both the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Seattle Sonics have stepped up talk of relocating if they don't receive public arena subsidies.

In Pittsburgh, it was NHL commissioner Gary Bettman waving the threat stick, telling the Pens' radio announcer: "We never want to move a franchise, but the team's lease expires in a year and if there's no new building, there's no way this club can have any future in Pittsburgh. If there's a new arena there's no question the team's going to be [in Pittsburgh]. Without a new arena there's no question the team's going to go." Local elected officials have been noncommital on the team's plan to have a casino developer build an arena in exchange for getting a lucrative state slots-parlor license, but Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato says he'll release a new arena-funding plan "by the end of March."

In Seattle, Sonics owner Howard Schultz is telling anyone who'll listen that he might move his team to suburban Bellevue, or relocate to San Jose, Anaheim, Oklahoma City or Kansas City, if they're denied $220 million in arena renovation funds by the end of the state legislative session on March 9. Seattle City Council president Nick Licata insisted that the council will stick to its schedule of public meetings, which would take until April, and chided Schultz for his ultimatum: "It's just a political play, pure and simple. They want their way and they want their way now. There is no new information they are providing, they are just saying it louder."

In other contrived Super-Bowl-related news, today's Cleveland Plain Dealer has an article about how to go about building a roof over Browns Stadium. According to the PD, a fiberglass roof would cost $60 million, but "if it helped bring a Super Bowl to Cleveland, the revenue generated could help defer the cost." Or maybe the city could just take the cash and buy the local newspaper some copy editors.

D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams has delivered still more stadium documents to the city council - artist's rendition here - in a last-ditch attempt to gain approval of the Nationals lease this Tuesday. Among the latest tweaks:

The last of these is expected to be the contentious item, with several councilmembers wondering aloud whether the sale of a city asset should be considered a new contribution to the project, or a new cost. "If we did not pledge the development rights to this, we would have [the money] to use for other purposes," councilmember Jim Graham told the Washington Post. "We're still taking out of our own pockets for baseball."

Graham, though, no longer matters in the calculus of the lease vote. All eyes are on the three swing votes, Kwame Brown, Vincent Gray, and Carol Schwartz, two of whom must switch sides for the deal to be approved. Brown was the only one talking yesterday, and he said he wasn't happy with the land-sale provision, either: "I'm not there yet," he told the Washington Times. "I have asked [council] chairman [Linda] Cropp to postpone the vote."

Council consultants will be poring over the mound of supporting documents this weekend; depending on what they find and how the swing votes make up their minds, either the council will likely vote for the plan on Tuesday, or Cropp will postpone the vote yet again.

The new final version of the Washington Nationals stadium lease turns out to have been not so final after all. D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams now says he'll revise the lease to deal with objections from city CFO Natwar Gandhi, who'd previously said of the revised deal, "I cannot take it to Wall Street." Asked if the new revisions would satisfy him, Gandhi replied: "I think so. I'll wait to see the final paperwork." Effusive guy, that Natwar.

The D.C. city council, meanwhile, met with Williams yesterday for a briefing on the 600-page lease documents, and it doesn't sound like it went all that well. Councilmembers expressed concerns about giving the Nats 42.5% of the proceeds from the sale of development rights and calling that a concession - "We're not going to take that," said councilmember Marion Berry, "we bought the land" - and over the mayor's failure to provide documentation on how he'd limit cost overruns. The Washington Times reports that "none of the eight members who oppose the deal gave any indication yesterday of having changed their minds," and notes that "when the doors to [council chair Linda] Cropp's conference room occasionally opened, members could be heard yelling at the mayor's negotiating team and the mediator, former Detroit Mayor Dennis W. Archer."

It's looking more and more likely that vote will be postponed from February 7, if only to give Williams more time to figure out how to improve his public presentation skills.

LATE NOTE: Sounds like the mayor's getting cranky about the whole situation: "You know the mayor's stupid and this was an awful deal, it's still awful and everybody's bad, I don't have any desire whatsoever to continue that game," he told D.C.'s NBC4. "I think it's now time to have a vote. I do not have any intention whatsoever this time of withdrawing the legislation. I think we just need to have a vote. And if you want baseball, this is what we have."

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