County officials agree to stadium plan for Red Sox; Funds from tourist tax

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Lee County commissioners on Tuesday gave their blessing to a deal that could keep the Boston Red Sox in Lee County for 50 spring trainings to come.

Team vice president for operations Mike Dee said he expects to get an answer from team owners within a week. Dee said the commissioners’ approval sets the tone for a long-term stay.

“It provides the framework for many years to come,” he said.

That framework calls for the county to finance and build a new stadium somewhere south of Daniels Parkway between U.S. 41 and the future route of County Road 951, just east of Interstate 75. The team wants a Fenway Park replica, complete with Green Monster, ready for play in December 2011 but no later than December 2012.

The county has until the end of the year to come up with a preliminary budget, then until Jan. 15 to have financing. An architect must be signed on by Feb. 1, then a site of at least 80 acres nailed down somewhere in the target area by June.

The cost will be borne by as much as a 20 percent portion of the 5 percent tourist tax. The county expects the tax, paid on lodgings of six months or less, to generate just more than $22 million next year.

The deal would be for 30 years, with two potential 10-year renewals. Lease payments would rise from the $300,000 the team pays now to $500,000, and they would rise 3 percent every five years thereafter.

Currently a full third of the tax goes to beach and shoreline projects. A 53.6 percent share goes for advertising and Visitor and Convention Bureau operations. The remaining 13.4 percent goes to make the existing $900,000 payments on Hammond Stadium, the spring training home of the Minnesota Twins, and to fund not-for-profit attractions.

Commissioner Frank Mann said something will have to give.

“To increase the percentage committed to baseball it has to come from somewhere,” he said. “Where’s it coming from?”

If there is an unexpected storm and beach renourishment needs are more than anticipated there may be no money, Mann said.

“That full 20 percent will be committed,” he said. “Marketing money is the last available money.”

Commissioner Bob Janes said he could support the deal based on assurances the money for beach and shoreline projects would not be reduced.

“I’ll jump up and down on any attempt to take money from the beach programs we have,” he said.

Janes approved the reallocation of tourist tax revenue but missed the vote approving the deal framework. He said he would have supported the deal, but was giving Red Ribbon awards at a lunch hosted by the Lee County Coalition for a Drug Free Southwest Florida.

Commissioner Tammy Hall said commissioners and members of the Tourist Development Council will decide how to change the percentages later.

“There was a question whether the 33 percent would stay with beaches and shores and not go to marketing,” she said. “People in the industry want to look at overall numbers.”

Hall said the county can promote tourism, fund beach projects and still build a new stadium.

Only Commissioner Brian Bigelow voted against the deal. calling it a sweetheart deal for the Sox.

“It feels like it’s too good for them,” he said, quoting a Saturday Night Live skit. “‘Baseball’s been very, very good to them’ and not so good to us.”

Bigelow said there is no assurance the county can find another team to play in the City of Palms Park, the Red Sox’s existing spring home, or even that the team will agree to share it while their new stadium is under construction.

Dee said the team might agree to share “under the right considerations.”

“We’re very supportive of your effort to land another team,” he said.

Dee said there would be logistical issues with sharing the stadium, everything from practice areas and times to game schedules.

When the commission-appointed Tourist Development Council discussed the tax reallocation a week ago, they agreed to the arrangement. The vote was unanimous, but only five of the nine members were there.

Coastal hotel owners, who collect the bulk of the tax, have expressed some doubts about devoting so much of the tax to an inland stadium.

“We contribute greatly to the tourist taxes,” said Sonja Smith of the Condo Association of Sanibel Island. “Not a lot of business comes to us.”

Stadium funding does not really promote year-round tourism, Smith said, and taking money away from marketing efforts might hurt high-end coastal properties competing oversees.

A potential wild card left in the deck is Sarasota County.

Sarasota began courting the Red Sox a few months ago after the Cincinnati Reds announced they would be leaving for Arizona after next spring. County commissioners there will discuss raising their own tourist tax to fund a potential new stadium today.

“I always think there’s a chance,” said Elsie Souza, who has coordinator for the Sarasota group Citizens for Sox and who made the trek to Fort Myers on Tuesday.

John Yarbrough, the retired county parks director who has served as unpaid consultant for the county working with the team, said he expects Dee to convince the owners to agree.

“Mike is pretty darn comfortable with it,” he said. “Since he negotiated it I have to think he’s going to help sell it.”

Dee told commissioners that the 120,000 New Englanders who attended games here this year could swell to 180,000 or 190,000. The new stadium would have room for as many as 12,000 fans, up from around 8,000 at the City of Palms Park.

“New England has flocked to Southwest Florida since 1992,” Dee said.

Dee told commissioners he had planned on being in Philadelphia, where the Rays are playing the Phillies in the World Series. Yarbrough said the Sox falling short may have helped produce Tuesday’s agreement.

“Over the last week or so the Sox have been very engaged,” he said.

Source: http://www.cape-coral-daily-breeze.com/news/articles.asp?articleID=22315