I’m on the road today, but did want to briefly note that Tampa councilmember Bill Carlson, the likely swing vote on any Tampa Bay Rays stadium deal, has come out with his plan for a new way of funding the team’s $2 billion stadium district subsidy demand:
Tampa City Councilman Bill Carlson has proposed a new financing structure for the city’s investment in a Tampa Bay Rays stadium project that requires only the property taxes generated by the team’s privately funded multiuse development around the ballpark.
The new arrangement would eliminate the city’s nonbinding agreement to use $80 million from the Community Investment Tax. It also takes out the originally proposed $100 million backed by the Drew Park Community Redevelopment Area’s future property tax growth.
In short, instead of using $100 million from property taxes in the Drew Park CRA district and $80 million from the CIT sales tax surcharge, the city would take $180 million out of future property tax payments on the Rays’ development surrounding the stadium. The amount of taxes collected would be the same, and the check from Tampa to Rays owner Patrick Zalupski would be the same, but it would come from a different city pocket.
Unless there’s more to it than WUSF is reporting, that’s pretty underwhelming, but it appears it’s all it will take to flip Carlson’s vote. The councilmember said that the new tax increment structure would have more public transparency and the money could only be spent on “government-owned property” like “stormwater, roads, sidewalks,” but if Zalupski can’t find $180 million worth of infrastructure to spend on out of a multi-billion-dollar project, he’s not really trying, especially given the increasingly flexible definition of “infrastructure.” Mayor Jane Castor has endorsed the tax switcheroo, and Carlson says Zalupski has been receptive as well; if spending from one pot of tax money instead of another is all it takes to buy his support, Carlson sold out cheap compared to some past Florida swing votes.
He just wants to be seen as having put in an effort during the negotiation process so he could add extra lines on his resume the next time he’s up for election. In the end, it’s a different way to take the same financial bath.
All of this in advance of the Bucs’ eventual, inevitable multi-billion dollar stadium renovation/rebuild, btw.
Carlson and I are fighting about this on X right now, if anyone wants to wade into that cesspool to chime in, or just rubberneck.
Oddly, Carlson is not running for his Council seat, but will run for mayor next year.
I guess saying you tried to keep the Rays/bring them to the Hillsborough side would be something he could campaign on.
…. I’m sorry to ask, but… if the “rays related” development comes up short on the $180m in property tax payments… who covers the shortfall?
That might be the only legitimate difference here, if the Rays were to agree to cover any shortfall on their owned/related development.
In practice this generally only forces the development to happen (since the owner will be on the hook for ‘developed land’ property taxes anyway), but it is at least some form of guarantee.
A reasonable question! The WUSF article doesn’t say, and when I asked on X for more details, Carlson wrote “here is the correct information,” and linked to … the same WUSF article. So: reply hazy, try again later.