Marlins stadium talks heat up – no, really this time

It took three and a half years, but the Florida Marlins may have finally figured out how to close that $30 million funding gap on their half-billion-dollar stadium without asking the state for it. (‘Cause that sure wasn’t working.) Today the Miami city commission approved a plan to build a $525 million, retractable-roofed stadium entirely with city, county, and team money on the current site of the Orange Bowl. If the Miami-Dade County commission follows suit on Tuesday, and all the details are worked out, officials say construction could begin in time to open a new stadium by April 2010. (Given that that’s only a little over two years away and they’d need to demolish the existing Orange Bowl first, that seems ambitious, but you can’t blame a girl for trying.)

How did the parties involved find a way to come up with the missing money, especially when the current price tag is actually $35 million more than it was just last spring? The newspaper coverage hasn’t exactly been forthcoming about spelling it out, so let’s try to break it down, one payor at a time:

• The Marlins owners, instead of putting in $45 million up front and paying off $162 million in county bonds via annual rent payments, would put in $155 million up front, and nothing more.

• Under the old plan, the county would have paid for $145 million in bonds out of its own pocket. Instead it will now put in $249 million, mostly from tourist tax dollars, partly from general revenues.

• The city would spend $121 million, again mostly from tourist tax revenues, instead of $108 million under the previous proposal.

In short, then, the secret to the new stadium deal is: The county got rolled. Even if you count the $50 million in Orange Bowl renovation funds that would be redirected to the Marlins project as found money (which it isn’t really, because that money could have been redirected elsewhere instead), it’s still putting $54 million more than it had pledged previously, allowing the funding gap to be filled and the Marlins to reduce their own expenses by about a quarter. Guess Bob DuPuy is a better haggler than I gave him credit for.

That’s not all, though. Another part of the plan would involve building a $100 million soccer stadium, for a team that doesn’t exist yet, half of which would be paid for by Major League Soccer and half by it’s not clear who, which would somehow, in the Miami Herald’s words, “become a funding source for a 6,000-car parking garage the city is responsible for building to support the ballpark.” If you followed that, you’re a better person than I.

Some of the biggest outstanding questions about the two-day-old deal:

• Will the county sign off on the deal? At the Tuesday meeting where the plan was first proposed, county commissioner Carlos Gimenez grumped to reporters: “Now we’re at $155 million [in team contribution]. That’s all I’ve got to say.”

• Since the new deal would apparently use some Community Redevelopment Agency funds, would that run afoul of the requirement that that money be used only in “blighted” areas?

• Will the Marlins agree to put in $155 million cash, or is this one more gift horse they will look in the mouth? Asked this question yesterday, Fish president David Samson replied, “That’s a tough question. I do not have a gut instinct,” adding, “It’s a complicated agreement, which we just got yesterday.” Translation: No, you can’t look at my cards.