Rhode Island’s plan to replace the departed Pawtucket Red Sox with a USL soccer team has gotten a fair bit of attention for its soaring costs, which led the state to take money intended for surrounding development and spend it on stadium construction instead. But what about the revenue side of things? How sure are state officials that projected tax revenue streams from a tax increment financing district will pay off the public’s $2.1 million in annual construction debt payments?
Welp:
Initially, Commerce also said an economic and financial report put together by a sports stadium consulting firm, CLS, wouldn’t be released without an Access to Public Records Act review. But amid growing criticism last week, state officials reversed course and released the document, which among other details showed for the first time how much state revenue the stadium is projected to generate. (Year one will net $565,000; year 30 will net $1.4 million).
I don’t have my calculator open, but I’m pretty sure $565,000 and $1.4 million are both considerably less than $2.1 million. Meaning that extra money will have to come from somewhere, which WPRI reveals would be:
The shortfall in stadium-specific revenue means officials will need to use existing tax revenue generated in the TIF district to cover the rest of the bond payment for the project. Consultants for Pawtucket officials say that shouldn’t be a problem, since the TIF district currently generates about $6 million in state revenue each year without the stadium.
That’s right: The TIF district, whose entire selling point is that it only uses the tax increment that is attributable (in theory, at least) to the new construction, would also get to use tax revenues that the state is already getting. And a whole lot of tax revenues, given that the TIF district is set to cover an area way, way, larger than just the immediate vicinity of the soccer stadium:
Former state commerce secretary and current state treasurer candidate Stefan Pryor, who promised in 2019 that the stadium project “will pay for itself,” said in a debate on WPRI that it still might, maybe, if additional phases of development are added — though those would likely require more public subsidies.
There’s still a chance Rhode Island could pull the plug on this whole project depending on who wins the gubernatorial election this fall, which may not be current Gov. Dan McKee, given that he currently has the lowest approval rating of any U.S. governor. Though his leading challengers, Nellie Gorbea and Helena Foulkes, both say they support the project but just want to figure out a different way to pay for it, which, good luck with that. Pete Townshend did warn us.
Commerce should have hired Andrew Zimbalist, he would have shown numbers that had a surplus being returned to the tazpayers like he did in Worcester.
No one watches soccer. The news stations don’t even report scores on soccer games. The only news we see about soccer is the stadium cost. I would be surprised if it generates any revenue at all. This is a political blunder.