Posts Tagged Jacobs Field
Progressive Field Will Get a Facelift of Some Kind
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development on May 11, 2010
May 11, 2010… You who are paying close attention may have noticed that in my last posting here I said that a Gateway official told me that – despite a contrary mention in a New York Times article – Progressive Field was NOT getting a re-do.
Well, apparently that’s not true. Sorry about that.
Crain’s Cleveland Business this week reports that the Cleveland baseball team will soon announce an agreement to make “significant changes to the ballpark.” As I said in the original post, who knew? Apparently, not us, the owners and taxpayers.
Apparently, the ball park owner, Gateway Development Corp., which you and I heavily helped pay to build, didn’t know either. Gateway said today it has not been advised of the changes. Crain’s knows but the owners don’t. Is that the way it’s supposed to go?
Bill Reidy, retired partner of PriceWaterhouseCoopers and a former city law director, is chairman of the Gateway board. Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland have representatives on the board.
I guess the Cleveland Indians and owner Larry Dolan make the decisions without much consultation with the owners – essentially us – the taxpayers of Cuyahoga County.
Gateway top two officials – Todd Greathouse and Brian Kelly – assured me that Gateway – even if the Indians made capital improvements – would not pay for them.
I kinda find that hard to believe if major changes are in the cards. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Here’s the Crain’s story, which doesn’t say anything about the cost possibilities or who will pay for them:
http://www.crainscleveland.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100510/SUB1/100509860
To a question of how much Gateway has in any capital fund, the pair assured me it has none. Further, capital improvements WOULD be paid by the team. Each year an operating and capital fund is established with the team meeting the costs.
However, if these are to be major changes unlike normal capital improvements, the public needs to be assured that the team will cover the costs. Especially when it appears that Dolan is making the decisions without even consulting with Gateway’s board.
The public should hear directly from Gateway board as an assurance that no more public money will be plowed into the stadium for the revenue enhancement of the team owners.
The team now pays both operating and capital funding. This resolution came about after a long fight over stadium and arena costs. Without this agreement a few years back Gateway was faced with the possibility of bankruptcy. The team owners, among others, would have been embarrassed by such an occurrence.
Progressive Field, first known as Jacobs Field, was built in the early 1990s primarily from revenue from the County’s sin taxes, which raised some $266 million for the stadium and arena. It opened in 1994. The County had to add revenues to the project because of cost overruns. In addition to the “sin” taxes each year the County has had to pay some $10 million on bonds let by Cuyahoga County to cover additional costs. These payments have cost taxpayers more than $100 million thus far and they continue to be paid. The stadium alone cost $176 million to build. It now has a seat capacity of 45,199.
The team is worth, according to a Forbes magazine compilation of MLB teams worth, $391 million. Dolan paid Jacobs $323 million for the team in 2000. Forbes says gross revenues of the team last year were $170 million. The team is 21st of the 30 teams in gross revenues. Gate receipts were $37 million, according to this listing.
The Gateway board meets only about four times a year. Coverage of the board meetings by the news media has been infrequent to none in recent years. Maybe it needs to be on the assignment list again.
Perfect Solution Where New Cuyahoga County Officials Can Meet
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Media, Politicians on March 28, 2010
March 28, 2010… I have the perfect place for the new Cuyahoga County Council to meet. It shouldn’t cost a penny. County taxpayers already paid for construction. And even to furnish it!
It’s a building the County constructed in Jacobs Field.
It’s not far from the present County Administration building.
The building wasn’t even in the lease. It was a gift.
I was told at the time that there was an unsightly ramp. Such a problem. So we – thank you Michael White and Tim Hagan especially – built a 57,500 square foot administration building “to hide the ramp that would have been visible to the public from Ontario Street,” Gateway boss Tom Chema told me. I guess they didn’t think of some far less costly solution. Shrubbery perhaps?
The truth is that Dick Jacobs wanted an office building for his Cleveland Indians staff. And what Dick Jacobs wanted our County Commissioners and Chema gave him.
So why doesn’t the County ask the Dolan family to vacate one floor of the five-story office building we built for them? (Come to think of it, maybe Matt Dolan, candidate for County Executive, could expedite this process with Larry Dolan, team owner and his dad.)
Back in 1990 I reported on this give-away. Neither The Plain Dealer nor any of the hot shot TV news stations touched it. Is that unusual?
Here are some of the facts:
The building, not called for in original plans or lease, cost us $7 million. That included furnishings. Yes, we even furnished it for Jacobs. It cost $900,000. Telephones, desks, computers, etc. All free.
Jacobs, of course, certainly knew the value of such real estate.
Here’s what I wrote in the Free Times at the time:
“Downtown real estate developer Dick Jacobs, of course, knows the value of that Gateway gift. Indeed, Jacobs, owner of the new Society (now Key) Center a few blocks away, asks tenants to pay $38 a square foot in his building. (His Society Center was property tax free, as was – and is – the stadium and the free building. You see rich people are not expected to pay taxes as the rest of us are made to do.)
“If Gateway did the same, instead of charging no rent, the space given Jacobs in the administration building would be worth $2,185,000 a year. With no increase over the 25-year lease that would be more than $54 million in free rent.”
Since 1990, that would have meant more than $30 million to the County. Didn’t happen.
And there’s a perfect table for the new commissioners to meet around.
At Jacobs’ request the County provided an 18-foot by 5-foot boat shaped table for a conference room. That should fit for the 11-member Council. If not, I’m sure it could be expanded.
The table had an ash veneer, according to the plans. I don’t think some of the special treatment asked by Jacobs will interfere with government business. The table called for inlaid wood shaped to replicate the stitching of a baseball.
There might be one problem. The table also called for a metal etching of the racist symbol of Chief Wahoo to be inlaid at each end.
I checked at the time with some firms that make custom tables. One said that with the inlays the cost would be about $10,000 for the table.
Good enough for our certainly new tax-conscious commissioners, don’t you think?
I asked Chema at the time whether he reported this magnificent gift to the Internal Revenue Service. “Absolutely not,” Chema said.
So there’s plenty of room for the commission at no cost in a building we taxpayers built.
The inattentive Plain Dealer offered today (Sunday) three possible meeting places. The cost estimates for the three range from some $687,000 to $1.2 million. The PD story is here:
Time to save some public money. Time for a billionaire family to give back to the community. Time, indeed, for us to assert our public will.
C’mon Matt, you can help. Have a talk with dad.