After a public hearing and another lengthy discussion on the proposed new Nashville Sounds stadium at Sulphur Dell, the Metro Council approved the plan, sending it on to a third and final vote next week.
The council voted 28 to 7 to approve a $65 million bond issue for the ballpark, along with several other bills related to the plan, all of which passed with even larger majorities. Perhaps the most crucial hurdle for ballpark proponents was a bill which amended the Capital Improvements Budget to include $65 million for the project, as that legislation required 27 votes to pass the council. It passed 30 to 2 and will not require another vote.
The council will give final consideration to the plan at a special called meeting Dec. 10.
Immediately following the council's votes Tuesday night, a Mayor Karl Dean celebrated the news.
“This investment north of downtown returns baseball to its historic home in Sulphur Dell and will spur further redevelopment of the Jefferson Street area, and that’s great for our entire city," Dean said. "Tonight’s vote moved the project one step closer to reality, and I thank all our partners in the deal, including Gov. Bill Haslam, the State Building Commission members and their staff, the Nashville Sounds, Embrey Development Corp. and the members of the Metro Council and Nashville Sports Authority. I also want to thank the Metro Council for meeting next week to take their final vote on this important and exciting project.”
Officially, Tuesday's public hearing was on a bill amending the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency redevelopment district to accommodate the ballpark, but it served as a hearing on the stadium project as a whole. The majority of the speakers were supportive of the project, who cited the history of the Sulphur Dell site and the need for jobs and investment in the North Nashville area, where many residents feel they have been left out of a steady stream of economic development projects in other parts of town. Only three people spoke in opposition to the ballpark, arguing that the process was moving too fast and the financing proposal put taxpayers on the hook if parts of the deal went awry.
One source of revenue Metro intends to put toward paying off the debt on the stadium is the projected property tax from a multi-family and retail development built by the Sounds ownership. The city projects that the $50-$60 million development would generate $750,000 annually in tax revenue, making it a key part of the plan to cover $4.3 million in annual debt service. Troubling to some, though, is the fact that the Sounds ownership is not obligated to follow through with the development.
With that in mind, At-Large Councilman Charlie Tygard filed an amendment earlier this week that would have obligated the Sounds to pay $750,000 for every year that such a development was not constructed on the land near the ballpark. He offered the provision as a way to "protect the taxpayer" from what he called "the most troubling aspect" of the stadium proposal. At council committee meetings on Monday, he was accused of trying to force a "poison pill" into the ballpark legislation, and on Tuesday night he pushed back against that characterization.
"Quite frankly, I have a fiduciary responsibility to be a good steward to the taxpayers," he said. "And when there's a loophole or there's an issue that may require the taxpayers to be on the hook for an additional [$750,000], I thought this amendment that simply said if, by chance, for whatever reason, the project doesn't get built then the Sounds would pay the difference there until that project gets built."
"This is not a move to kill the bill. I desperately want to vote for this bill," he added, before recalling his record of support for "big ticket" items like the Music City Center and the Bridgestone Arena.
One of Tygard's front-row colleagues, At-Large Councilman Ronnie Steine, said the amendment essentially told the Sounds that the city didn't trust them — a "grossly unfair" slight, he said, to a "vital, caring part of this community."
"They deserve our benefit of the doubt," Steine said. "It's a benefit of the doubt that we have given consistently in every one of these instances, and this kind of amendment is unprecedented in one of our pieces of legislation. They deserve our trust. What this amendment is is really an unsubstantiated, unwarranted slap at their integrity. If this seems harsh, just imagine if you were them and this council was contemplating such an unprecedented, punitive regulation."
(To the charge that he was proposing "punitive" measures against the Sounds, Tygard said that if his goal had been to punish the Sounds, he would have written the amendment to call for more than the expected amount of tax revenue, $750,000. As for the notion that his amendment was "unprecedented," he verified with council attorney Jon Cooper that the entire deal — in which the debt on a public facility is paid for in part with tax revenue from private facility — was itself largely unprecedented.)
Councilman Jason Holleman, who had supported Tygard's amendment in committee, announced his intention to vote against it Tuesday night, citing a compromise offered by Sounds owner Frank Ward.
In a letter to council members (available in PDF form below) Ward said the Sounds were "deeply and irreversibly committed to not only the new ballpark but also our real estate development that will occur next door." Although Ward said the team believed additional assurances were "unnecessary" he offered some in an apparent attempt to assuage lingering concerns.
The Sounds ownership, he said, will propose to the Sports Authority that agreements include a requirement that construction on the development begins on or before February 2016. (The stadium is slated to open in the spring of 2015.) If that deadline is not met, Ward said, "I would agree to sell our property to a private party with Metro or Metro's assignee having the right of first refusal."
Before the vote on Tygard's amendment, the project's most vocal supporters on the council — At-Large Councilman Jerry Maynard and Councilwoman Erica Gilmore, whose district includes the Sulphur Dell site — urged members to vote against the provision.
"Whether the sponsor knows it or not, by offering this amendment, if it passes it will kill this deal," Maynard said. "I am not speaking to you in hyperbole, I am not speaking to you in hypotheticals, I am telling you the facts. So everyone has stood up before me and said how much they love baseball, how much they love North Nashville and how much they love economic development, but I'm going to vote for this amendment. You'll be voting to kill this bill."
Gilmore called the talk of fiduciary responsibility and protecting the taxpayer's money "curious" since she said it hadn't come up before other projects, in other parts of town, in the past. Getting visibly emotional, she asked members to support a project in her district as she had supported projects in hers.
"Think about the way that I've supported you in the past," she said. "Your projects, your particular districts can thrive and survive and I think I've been good at doing that. So I would ask that you support my district tonight, my community. Not just for me but for Nashville. We have to make sure things are equal. We have to make sure that all communities work."
"And before I have never stood up on big projects and talked about fiduciary responsibility. Taxpayers money. We've trusted it in the past. And now we have a question with it. So, I'm gonna sit down because I can't see straight right now and I don't know why I can't but I would ask that you not support this amendment and just think about your district and the pride you have when you bring economic development to your district. And think about others for a change and those people who have supported you and your different initiatives."
In the end, the amendment failed with nine members supporting it and 26 voting against.
After the vote, Ward explained his compromise offer further with the Scene.
"It really came about from Mr. Tygard's comments last night, saying, 'I love you but I don't trust you,'" he said. "I tried to put in writing that, guys, I've always kept my commitments but if I don't, I'm willing to sell it because somebody else is going to develop it. I guarantee you I have five people lined up who will buy it tomorrow to develop it."
Asked about the assertion of several council members that Tygard's amendment constituted "renegotiating the deal" in the final hour, Ward agreed.
"Look at the precedent you're setting," he said. "If council then can come in and say, I don't like the deal, then why did I spend six months negotiating with the mayor and his staff? I should've just come in and said 'council, I'll negotiate with you.' That's not their role."
Read Ward's letter to the council here:
