Big news, everybody! Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ plan to spend $360 million in state money on stadium renovations for the Milwaukee Brewers in exchange for the team owners signing a 13-year-lease extension is “dead” in the state legislature, according to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. “I think the deal that he cut is not a very good one for the taxpayer,” declared Vos yesterday, vowing that he would not … oh, not that kind of dead:
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said he hoped Republicans could devise a better deal that would look for a commitment from the team to remain in Milwaukee longer and not rely as heavily on money from a one-time budget surplus.
The first part of that, at least, is promising: Getting Brewers owner Mark Attanasio to agree to extend his lease beyond 2043 (it currently expires in 2030) would at least push back the date some at which point the team could come back to the state to demand more money for more renovations or a whole new stadium or a second stadium for emergencies or who knows what. The second part is just weird, since spending money from a budget surplus at least means you don’t have to pay bond financing costs to borrow the money and then pay it off later, so using money from some other state source wouldn’t necessarily save taxpayers anything. Maybe Vos means he wants to spend less money overall, or maybe he just wants to spend it from a different pot of money — he didn’t say, beyond “I think there has to be a different deal put together” and “I don’t want to get into all the details.”
In case you couldn’t guess, Vos and Evers are from different political parties — Vos is a Republican, Evers a Democrat — so some of this is likely just “No, you don’t get to be the one to give a giant pile of money to the local sports team owner, I’m going to be the one to give a giant pile of money to the local sports team owner.” We’ll know more once Vos actually talks to the rest of the legislature about his plans, maybe; he said yesterday he hasn’t spoken to either other Republican state senate leaders or leaders of the Democratic- Republican-controlled state house.
As for why everyone is scrambling to throw money at the local rich guy, it’s so the team doesn’t move, silly! Sure, Attanasio hasn’t breathed a word about moving, but you can tell it’s to keep the team from moving because there’s a new coalition of political and business leaders that says it is:
“The Milwaukee Brewers are a point of pride for Wisconsin and it’s important that we do what is needed to ensure Major League Baseball is preserved in our state for the next generation,” [Milwaukee-area restaurateur/developer Omar] Shaikh said in a statement. “Through our collective efforts, the Home Crew Coalition aims to deliver that message statewide and ensure the Brewers can call American Family Field their home for years to come.”…
Other members of the coalition announced Wednesday include Mike Grebe, a retired attorney and former chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin; Dan Kapanke, a former Republican state senator and owner of the La Crosse Loggers baseball team; Ashok Rai, president and chief executive officer of Prevea Health; Peggy Smith, president and CEO of VISIT Milwaukee; Andrew Disch, political director of North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters; Tracy Johnson, president of the Commercial Association of REALTORS Wisconsin; Jim Villa, CEO of NAIOP Wisconsin, an organization of real estate developers; and Rob Zerjav, president and CEO of the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers.
Developers, realtors, tourism officials, construction unions, and other sports team owners — yep, that pretty much runs the gamut of society, no need to hear from anyone else. And it’s led by a Republican lobbyist, Brandon Scholz, which could possibly help get Vos and the state senate on board.
What everyone agrees, anyway, is that the Brewers need almost $400 million to spend on renovation work. Well, not everyone: A state report in 2019, Urban Milwaukee’s Bruce Murphy reminded us last month, found that the stadium will need about $86 million in work between now and 2040, but Attanasio then commissioned his own report saying the stadium actually needed five times that. At which point the state hired an auditor to look over Attanasio’s numbers and … it was CAA Icon, best known for their terrible study justifying giving the Buffalo Bills owner a ton of money for a new stadium on the grounds that people would stop going to Sabres games otherwise. CAA Icon promptly said the real Brewers renovation cost would between $540 million and $604 million, and now $360 million sounds cheap, doesn’t it? Ah, anchoring, where would people looking to overcharge for things be without you?
Watch out for a similar deal, but without the property tax exemption for future development around the stadium.
https://biztimes.com/future-development-around-american-family-field-would-be-exempt-from-property-taxes-under-gov-evers-budget-proposal/
“The recommended property tax exemption was first reported by Dan Shafer in his weekly opinion column, “The Recombobulation Area.” As Shafer points out, it could complicate any development plans the Brewers might pursue for the 82 acres of surface parking lots around American Family Field. Some have suggested that the Brewers should create a mixed-use entertainment district around American Family Field – like the Deer District around Fiserv Forum in downtown Milwaukee or the Titletown District around Lambeau Field in Green Bay – as a possible solution to raise tax revenue to help pay for stadium upgrades.
But without the promise of forthcoming property tax revenues – as recommended in Evers’ proposal – any development done by the Brewers at the stadium site could not generate tax incremental financing, and the development itself would not financially benefit the city or other local government entities.”
Just a note – the Republican party controls both the state Assembly and the State Senate.
Thanks, will fix now! (A quick Googling had implied the opposite.)
Is there any reason to believe that enticing/paying Attansio to extend the team’s lease at the only stadium anywhere near their home territory that they could possibly play in would delay a future demand for a new stadium?
I mean, it should. But… how many decades have Sternberg’s Rays been mumbling about the need for a new stadium when they are actually lease bound to play all their games at the Trop until 2027?
They were lobbying for the city/county/somebody/anybody to build them a new stadium less than half of the way through their original lease.
Would the prepaid extension on this lease stop the Brewers from threatening to relocate for half of the 13 year extension?
4 years?
2 years?
Not at all?
Color me skeptical on how much time this bribe would buy. It could easily be “60 seconds after the renovation agreement is signed”.
My favorite is the NY assemblywoman who justified handing over a trainload of money to billionaires because it would help senior citizens, since if people are going to the game the supermarkets would be less crowded.
By the way, is there any disinterested study that shows that public subsidies for these facilities is a good deal for the taxpayers? You’d think journalists might actually do research in this area, wouldn’t you?
As to the composition of the WI legislature, I haven’t noticed either party particularly careful of the taxpayers’ interest.