Good afternoon.

It's uh April 16, 2026.

Welcome to the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners Tampa Bay Ray's workshop.

Uh, before I pass things over to the county administrator for opening remarks, a couple of uh comments.

You'll see that the workshop is scheduled from one thirty to three today.

Commissioner Cohen uh has a flight to take shortly after that.

Commissioner Miller has child care duties, and I have to leave shortly after that as well.

So I'm gonna ask speakers to be mindful of the time so we leave plenty of time for board uh questions and comments.

Uh, secondly, there are three uh primary goals of today's meeting provide an update and status of negotiations to receive uh board uh input and direction, and to provide transparency to the public.

We will not negotiate in public.

With that, uh Bonnie, if you'd like to make some opening remarks.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and welcome everybody.

And today, as you mentioned, we're convening today's workshop to provide an update on the ongoing discussions regarding the opportunity for the Tampa Bay rays to relocate to Hillsborough County.

The proposal under consideration includes a approximately a thirty-one thousand seat ballpark and approximately seven point six million square feet of surrounding development on the Hillsborough College site.

Some of those issues will be discussed during today's workshop.

The financial request from the team is substantial, over a billion dollars, and would exceed any comparable requests for professional sports facility by a local government that we are aware of.

That reality requires careful scrutiny and disciplined evaluation.

You'll also hear today from County Attorney Mandel regarding the permissible use of the community investment tax for a project of this nature.

And I also want to take a moment to address some questions that have arisen regarding how these funds were anticipated to be used.

There were several categories that we outlined in 2024.

They include transportation and public works, public safety, public facilities, and public utilities.

We'll focus on the public utility, sorry, public facilities category because other than contingency, that is the one category we're considering utilizing.

Within public facilities, there's a subcategory entitled Community Facilities, and that subcategory was funded at $545 million.

Within that category, several types of projects were identified as eligible, including Raymond James Stadium, Amelie Arena at the time, now Benchmark International Arena, Steinbrenner Field, Tournament Sports Facilities, A PET Resources Shelter, and Community Facilities Other.

However, it's important to note that only the total funding amount for this category was approved.

Eligibility within that category does not constitute a determination of priority or appropriateness for funding.

No specific allocations were designated for any individual project or entity.

While internal estimates were developed at the time, those figures were preliminary, not part of any formal approval, and were never promised or guaranteed to any group.

These are taxpayer dollars, and only this board has the authority to allocate them through formal action.

That action has not occurred.

It is also worth noting that since the CIT's approval in 2024, the board has made significant additional investments in several of these community assets without the need to rely on these CIT funds, including most recently $18 million for Steinbrenner Field and 250 million dollars for benchmark international arena.

This was done because we recognize the strong partnerships we have with these teams, including the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

We also recognize that these are county-owned facilities and that they allow for a multitude of events to be held, which provide tremendous impact to our community.

That continued support is warranted.

You also hear from staff today regarding the financial structure being requested by the RAIS.

One key issue is the request for substantial upfront funding during the construction period.

This creates challenges in identifying viable and responsible revenue sources.

The financial strategies that will be presented today are just that.

They are options.

They are not recommendations and they require further analysis and vetting.

Importantly, the team also has not agreed to the financing concepts being presented today, nor to several of the county's core requirements.

Those discussions are ongoing and no final terms have been reached.

Finally, you'll hear more today about the proposed timeline and potential next steps.

But let me be clear: a project of this scale and importance demands thoughtful, deliberate consideration.

We will not bring forward an agreement for board consideration before it is fully developed and thoroughly evaluated.

There is still substantial work to be done and many questions that must be answered.

At the same time, we recognize the opportunities of this scale are rare, and if structured responsibly, this could this one could have a transformational impact on our community.

And we look forward to today's discussion and to continuing to work with the board as this process moves forward.

And finally, I would like to recognize many people who have been part of this process.

First Deputy County Administrator Greg Horwadell, Chief Financial Administrator Tom Fessler, County Attorney Julia Mandel, and Sam Hamilton, also from the County Attorney's Office, together with Eric Hart from the Tampa Sports Authority.

And this team, together with city staff, our financial consultants and legal counsel have been and will continue to be instrumental in this analysis, and I want to publicly express my appreciation for their diligence and thoughtful consideration on this important project.

Thank you.

And so with that, Mr.

Chair, we can turn it over to AECOM to Dylan Gilman who is here in person.

And we also have a representative from AECOM available online of Chris Peruer.

Good afternoon, sir.

Thank you, everybody.

My name is Dylan Gilman.

I'm a senior analyst with ACOM Advisory out of Chicago.

I'm here today to present to you a summary of our findings in terms of the potential development and revenue estimates generated by the Tampa Bay Rays Stadium District.

Before I begin, I do want to apologize for the last minute change in our report that came out to you all, I believe, just yesterday.

But ultimately, we want to go forth with transparency.

So starting off to give a overview of the site, the district is located on the Hillsborough College Del Mabry campus between Raymond James Stadium and the Tampa International Airport.

It is also located within the Drew Park CRA community redevelopment area, which again is part of the fiscal analysis that we have prepared for you all.

Now, part of uh the important the importance of this slide is that uh we actually do not have a more detailed uh district map than the one that you are seeing.

Uh we have we are uh basically going off of a limited set of assumptions from the team uh in order to put together this analysis and ultimately why an independent analysis was uh requested by our client, uh the sports authority.

Sure.

The district is broken into three different categories in terms of the analysis.

We have the stadium itself, which again, the program for the stadium was given to us by the RAIS.

The ancillary development is mixed-use development that we have estimated based on a supportable development analysis of historical real estate deliveries over the last 10 years, and then other uses again are a set of essentially planned concepts that have been given to us by the RAIS in order to basically slot into the program uh as part of the development.

Now, the stadium, again, as I mentioned, we have been given the program.

However, we did through a benchmarking and other data analysis, put together estimates of the revenues and ultimately the economic and fiscal impacts that would be generated.

And we have done the same for the other two components in terms of estimating um potential taxable streams of revenue for the county and other units of government.

I will mention that for the other uses that again we were told to assume by the team that our scope of work does not include a full market and feasibility analysis on each of those concepts.

However, we have conducted again benchmarking exercises and revenue estimates to understand what the assessed value of those components of the project may be and also the taxable streams of income they may produce.

So going right into the economic and fiscal impacts, again, this is kind of the culmination of all of the work that I was just showing you over a 30-year period that begins in 2029, which is the year that we are assuming that the stadium and essentially the first tranche of development uh will be delivered through the next 30 years, uh, ending in 2058.

Now, the on-site impacts is have already been mentioned.

Um that is essentially a build up of the various revenue estimates that we have created for each of the individual concepts in the program.

And that is where you you see in the direct on-site the output, the 63 billion over 30 years there.

That is the buildup of of all of the market research that we have done.

From there, uh we have used an input-output model to get a sense, and again, this is again this is across the county.

We're using county level multipliers again over 30 years.

We generate uh approximately 20 billion of wage earnings on site in an annual average of 7400 jobs.

Layering in indirect um off-site impacts uh generally through the supply chain would add additional impacts and output earnings and jobs, as you can see here, supporting approximately 75 billion in output, 25 billion in earnings, and uh just less than 10,000 jobs on an annual basis.

Again, in the beginning of the of the project, those numbers on an annual basis will be much lower and will ramp over or ramp up over time as the development matures.

That economic impact ultimately will generate some taxable uh revenue streams, and over the same 30-year period, gross collections and these collections include tax rates such as the Tampa City and the County Operating Fund millages for ad valorum real estate taxes.

We have also included state and county sales taxes, the tourism development tax on hotel room receipts, and lastly the proposed admissions surcharge on ticket sales, which would just apply within the district district itself.

Now, in total, over 30 years, uh we are estimating that would uh sum to nearly 2.8 billion dollars, and about 60% of that fiscal impact uh would actually be coming from sources outside of the stadium.

So while the stadium is a uh district anchor and a critical component of the of the project, ultimately the majority of the fiscal benefits will be realized outside of that building.

And I also do want to uh make clear that these fiscal impacts are only based on direct on-site activities.

None of the indirect impacts are included in these fiscal estimates.

So certainly if uh additional development were to happen within the CRA or beyond, um, those are not counted here.

Uh also I want to mention in terms of ad valorum taxes that there are three components of the project that are not considered to be taxable, and that is the stadium, the Hillsborough College campus, and also uh three parking garages that were proposed as part of a phase one parking plan in the Kimley Horn analysis that was published back in December.

So now we get into a distinction of gross versus net collections.

So again, the gross collections are each of those taxes that I mentioned, the net collections are those that could potentially be used for project funding.

So there are portions that uh you know of each of the tax rates that are ultimately already committed to other projects or funds, but ultimately, um, based on our on our analysis, about 50 percent of that 2.8 billion dollar um gross collections, about half of it uh could be made available for project funding.

Now, I will also give a caveat that uh report in no way recommends or is meant to support specific financing options.

Um this is a means of estimating potential flows for the various taxes that are uh currently existent uh and also uh some additional that which you'll see here on the next slide.

In terms of the 1.4 billion that could be collected over 30 years, the county stands to collect over 900 million or two-thirds of that number, while the city would collect the remaining 33 percent or approximately 480 million.

So, as I mentioned, we were asked to uh estimate uh what we're calling speculative additional sources of funding could generate uh if implemented across the district uh over the 30-year period.

And the two that we uh that we assessed were a community development district, which as you can see at the bottom of the slide is a two percent fee applied to food and beverage retail and parking sales within the district.

However, this would require city application and approval to be implemented, and ultimately that is uh estimated to potentially produce two over 200 million dollars over the 30-year period.

Now, similarly, uh the special assessment is a 1% fee that would be applied to tickets in addition to uh food and beverage retail and parking, again, just within the district.

However, that would require state legislation uh to be implemented.

So these are not assumed, uh, you know, either or both of them are not assumed to be implemented, but again, it was it was an explorer uh exploratory exercise to see what could potentially be generated if funding gaps exist after considering the uh confirmed available sources.

So now I'll go into uh just a high-level uh summary of some of the analysis that we did that underpins the economic and fiscal impacts that I just presented, starting with the raised stadium.

Uh essentially what we uh the analysis that we conducted is a benchmarking analysis of comparable stadiums, also looking at ticket pricing across the league, understanding the types of uh events beyond the raise regular season that may be hosted in the stadium, the level of attendance for each type of event, and ultimately with outreach to industry service vendors, uh getting an understanding of food and beverage and merchandise spending on a per attendee basis for uh again each of the event types that are presented here.

We also uh we also did an assessment of the local market, including Tropicana Field, uh Raymond James Stadium, and other event types in order to uh build up an assumption for parking.

Getting into the ancillary and other uses, I have just a few more slides.

Um the 30-year development estimates, as I mentioned at the beginning, uh, is essentially an extrapolation of a 10-year historical development trend that was identified through market research.

Looking over a 30-year period, that trend translates to approximately a 115 million square feet that could be absorbed within the entire city of Tampa.

And the district estimates are essentially taking from the citywide uh pipeline in order to establish the as you see here, the 5.9 million of ancillary development.

Again, that's the market-driven piece of our analysis.

So that represents just five percent of the 115 million.

Uh during our process, there were concerns raised regarding uh other major projects that are either underway or proposed uh within the city, and we believe that um with the uh the prominence of these projects being mostly within the what we're calling the first phase or the first decade of our 30-year analysis period, uh we believe that there is sufficient room in the pipeline for the stadium district to be um built out simultaneously.

And that's uh in the the proposed projects uh in the major pipeline are mentioned there at the bottom, including um Water Street, Gasworks, Ybor Harbor, and a few others.

Um again, even if we're just looking at the first phase of development, uh the district still remains at about five percent of that 10-year pipeline uh from the city.

Adding in the other uses, and again, these are uses that we were told to assume that will be part of the program.

You'll see there uh essentially in the the middle of this table, uh significant amount of office, but also uh what we're calling revenue generating um concepts of a lifestyle fitness and recreation center, an immersive sports entertainment venue.

It's not just sports, it could also just visual arts in general, um, and also live entertainment venue for live concerts.

I will reiterate that this was not a this is not a market and feasibility study, and the study was conducted prior to recent uh venue announcements in the local market.

So that brings us to the 7.6 million square feet that was mentioned at the beginning of this meeting.

And finally, we uh we estimated assessed values based on again market research for the various concepts, um, again with limited information on exactly what concepts um will be built, but based on our estimates of development uh in the ancillary development category and the other uses that uh were built into our project or built into the project.

Uh we estimate about 730 million in assessed value in year one.

Now again, that does not include the stadium, that's everything outside of the stadium.

The majority of that value will be represented by the other uses.

However, by the end of phase one being built out, the ratio will switch to ancillary development being the majority, and that um that majority will be maintained and actually expanded out through the 30th year of our analysis, bringing assessed values, and obviously these are inflated to about 4.9 billion dollars.

That concludes my executive summary.

Um I believe we'll open it up for for questions regarding this presentation and also the revised report that was sent out yesterday.

Okay, thank you.

Um first of all, Mr.

Hart, I see you standing over there.

Did you want to add anything?

Are you just here for moral support or uh currently for moral support?

Okay, that works too.

Um I'll be more than happy to jump in.

Okay.

That's appreciated.

All right, we'll go into a board discussion.

Uh Commissioner Wilson.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, what was your name?

Dylan.

Hi, Dylan.

Thank you.

You did a good job.

I just want you to confirm a couple of things for me.

Um, first, did you feel like you were supplied with all of the documentation you needed to make a good assessment of this project?

Well, we were hired to do an independent assessment.

Um we were provided details about the stadium itself.

I think that proposal was public.

Um, however, again, as I stated in in the presentation, there are details that are missing that just cause us to have to make assumptions regarding the type and intensity of development for the ancillary development.

And then for the other uses, again, we were supplied those by the team.

So specifically when when the note was that detailed site plans for the stadium district were not provided by the team, it led AECOM to make assumptions regarding the type of intensity and development.

How significant um of an impact of you was that for you on to determine whether or not this is actually going to be an a viable um study?

I mean, how big of a variable was that?

Was it a small variable or could it disastrously change what you um provided?

Well, I will say that uh again it we weren't doing a feasibility study.

Um it's a supportable development saying that based on historical trends of development, ultimately this is what could be captured on site.

Um certainly if we were given more detail uh there would be a greater level of accuracy in terms of what they're planning, but those are those details are currently missing.

So we stand by ready to review additional information if it's provided.

I understand.

Um then just real quickly, some other slides.

Um your market analysis for all of the apartments, you pretty drastically changed um, speaking of accuracy, the amount of apartments that of RCL co provided, you drastically changed that.

I mean it was a it was a huge pivot.

And you did that according to your report, I want to confirm based off of market rate analysis, and the reason that I'm asking is because the team has advertised prolifically around the community that there would be affordable housing.

So since we know that as part of their um end game, how significantly would it impact all of those multifamily units that you add that you base this off of the reality that it sounds like at least some of if not a lot of will be affordable?

Well, certainly to the level that uh affordable housing would be part of the project that will impact the taxability of negatively negatively, right?

The taxability would be reduced.

Okay.

Um again, it those are assumptions that we weren't provided.

However, uh the 100% market rate uh was based on feedback from the race during our process.

Now on page 26, this was the one that really caught me off guard reading the study.

From day one, I was at the opening press conference.

They they announced six billion dollars of new taxable revenue, which I believe is on page 26.

It looks like your team reduced that by about 67 percent.

Can you walk me through what led to that?

Looks like you reduced it from 6.05 to 2.24 billion.

And the 2.24 has now increased due to our revisions to the 2.7 almost 2.8 billion um during the period.

Okay.

So it's not quite as drastic, however, um it's still big.

Right.

And and certainly over such a long um analysis period of 30 years, um, there are so many different assumptions that go into just how the stadium district would grow over time in terms of the development that's captured there, as well as the value of it that RCL Co might assume versus our team.

Um but you don't know because you had to guess so much.

Well, right, and again, we we we were asked to do a review of their of the information that was provided in that report.

Um, but it wasn't a point by point assessment of their modeling.

Uh ours is a an independent um analysis of the opportunity at the stadium district that is ultimately built up from original research that we've done.

On the property tax assessment, it looks like a variable that came in late.

Does yours assess all of the potential um square footage?

Did it take into account the reality that the Hillsboro College may be retaining all of the property and only leasing it?

So is your property tax assessment off of all of that land that now might not be eligible to be assessed property tax, only the verticality would be potentially?

So we in our analysis we did not separate land value from building value.

However, the market values in terms of the various uses basically baked into those assessed values that already exist across the county.

So did it take into account that if it was leased back, there'd be a reduced amount of square footage that we would be able to assess.

Isn't that true?

If it retained as a tax immune agency, right.

There would be a there would be a portion of the I guess the per square foot value metrics that would have to be taken out.

Yeah, and I would I would be interested to hear how large of a variable that is.

I just have a few more since I mean it was a hundred and eight page slide, so um you can understand.

Um on page 28, you um went through something that you you didn't guess, you were able to base assumptions off of what happens nationwide off of um teams' attendance rates, and you basically um pointed out that um even after a team enjoys the excitement of moving to a new area, which it's not really moving to a new area, it's it's just slightly better geographical location than where it is right now in terms of accessibility for everybody.

Um you still found in your analysis that the attendance would still only average out to be 20,500 per game, still placing the raise in the bottom third of MLB attendance.

And and that is a pretty fair.

I'm just asking because as we heard, this isn't over a one point a one billion dollar investment from the county.

Absolutely.

So that number is correct.

And I and one other thing you said on your slides that I didn't catch.

Is it right that your slide said that locally over the 30-year period, we would only project to collect in taxable revenue 1.3 billion dollars?

No.

So the gross collections are all collections that would be produced.

Um the net value of the 1.4 billion again is just the portions of those full tax rates that could be available for potential financing options for the project.

Which would potentially be reduced by the other new variables of affordable housing, um the leasing of the property.

The reason I'm asking is because it seems like it's gonna take us our return on investment would potentially be 30 years at this point.

We would be at net neutral of collectible taxes over the 30-year period compared to what we were projected to put into it locally.

That's that's the question I was getting to.

Um your net speculative additional assessments, you changed the CDD rates quite a bit.

I was just wondering what what led to that.

Um that was a last minute change that I wasn't expecting, and I had a lot of questions about it.

Sure.

Yeah, let me actually pull up uh the report.

Uh oh, this one.

Great.

Okay.

So I'm actually gonna scroll all the way to the end.

Pardon the craziness for one moment.

Okay.

So I have two slides prepared for uh the revisions that we um, the last minute revisions that we implemented into our report.

So getting to your question about the CDD.

So ultimately in the model, and what I'll explain in the red text here is essentially that the two percent that is applied to those the retail food and beverage and parking sales within the district, the ancillary development has 110 million, as you can see there on the slide.

That was uh accidentally double counted in the other uses portion.

It was just it was an error within one of my formulas where um it's all kind of grouped together in the model, and I just extended it too far to where it included ancillary development instead of just the other uses.

So that's why it came down from 136 million in terms of the other uses collections to 26.

So it was a double counting error that uh that I found after we had already issued the initial final report.

I'll close my questioning with um so so right now we have new unexpected variables that weren't taken into account.

You had a pretty significant lack of detailed information to improve the study that you did.

These new variables would seemingly um greatly reduce potentially the amount of taxable value that the community would see.

And then you on closing, you you changed the phase one.

The phase the the phase chart is pretty difficult to understand, but it looks like from the outside looking in that the taxpayers would be required to front load all of their money, and the team would not really have um a significant investment in in the initial phase.

Is that what the phase one suggests?

Our analysis doesn't get into the financing of the project, so I I can't comment on that.

Well, how much would phase one cost?

Um based off of your page 2042, excuse me, that you changed actually.

I didn't even notice you changed it at first, but you changed what the assessed value would be, so it confused me a little bit on the 2029.

So these assessed values are again based, so it's not exactly construction cost.

These are assessed values that are taken from I guess representative from our market research, we have built out assumptions again based on a level of quality that we are again assuming for each of these uses, and then that is how we get to the assessed value for what has been delivered in each of the years that you're seeing here.

But it is not exactly a development cost um analysis.

Okay.

Great.

I really appreciate it.

All right, thank you, sir.

I don't see anyone else in the queue.

Um please stick around.

We have some questions at the end.

Uh Julia.

You're up.

Uh, thank you.

Good afternoon.

Um, you have all received uh this this item relates to the uh request to uh to have a legal opinion on the use of the community investment tax and uh what what lawful purpose it can be used for.

Uh as I indicated, I was going to ask for an outside counsel opinion on this particular issue since I was not involved in the process of your renewal of your CIT and thought that that was prudent to do in this instance.

And you have all received um uh outside legal opinion from our bond counsel, Bryant Miller Olive.

First, um, let me just say that Bryant Miller all of the BMO has been the county's bond counsel for 25 years.

This is what they do, this is what the they analyze, and this is how they have served us for that period of time.

They have a highly respected role and have been really invaluable to us and to other uh other bond issuers all over the state.

Um their involvement in this instance was appropriate because if we were to go into a bond issuance uh situation, it would be their role to review all the sources of funds, review uh the the validity of the the resources and what we were going forward with to ensure that they were legally sufficient.

So this is a letter that they would have or this issue they would have had to analyze, and that would have been part of their role.

And what I want to just also indicate to you to make sure that everybody understands, because I heard some comments about just getting outside legal opinions, that that that is part of their role, and that is something that they are obligated to do as our bond counsel.

Um to summarize their legal opinion, and I think everybody's seen it and read it and probably heard about it, they have determined that there is no prohibition about using the CIT renewal funding as a source of revenue to pay for a new county-owned sports facility.

And so moving forward as it relates to that issue, we are comfortable and confident that we can proceed forward in that way.

Uh, I just want to make one other comment um on this issue.

Uh at our April 1st discussion where where I was asked to proceed forward with this legal opinion, there was some other additional conversations regarding voter intent.

That wasn't specifically reviewed in this opinion, but subsequent to that, and I have received some additional information, it may be prudent for us to proceed forward with an additional outside legal opinion from an election law expert as it relates to that question, and that is something I will will be pursuing as needed.

All right, thank you, Ms.

Mandel.

Uh, Commissioner Walsell.

Just real briefly, and thank you for and I I understand you're in an uncomfortable position.

I get it.

Um is this outside counsel that you're now recommending also going to discuss the reality that there will probably be several members of staff that will absolutely be subpoenaed on how they canvassed slash marketed this to the public, of which numerous times it was advertised, including on a legal document from the city of Tampa's chief of staff presented to the city of council that there was advertised and that the options were selected that no new facilities would be used of the CIT.

Will they be reviewing all of that for the potential reality that it presented in court?

As we proceed forward, if if and in looking at that issue, I think it would be appropriate to look at everything to determine whether or not that that particular issue remains a legal issue and what that means to say that there is an issue with voter intent.

But I will certainly have that additional conversation with them.

I'm just trying to avoid the long history that the county is developing of unfortunately losing in court on referendum issues.

So thank you.

Okay, don't see anyone else in the queue.

So Mr.

Hordel, Mr.

Fessler.

You guys are up.

Just a little taller.

Good afternoon, Commissioners.

Happy to be before you today to talk about what is probably the largest development in Hillsborough County's history that's been proposed, at least to our knowledge at the staff level.

Um we do have a number of slides that we want to go through.

I will endeavor to be as brief as possible, but I do want to make a couple of points on the first few slides.

Tom Fessler will go over uh a number of the financial slides so that you can fully understand the options as we've developed them, and that you can ask questions to get as informed answers as possible.

Then I'll close it with some other additional uh bits of information that we need to continue to work on in order to craft the MOU to bring something back to you that really satisfies all of the issues and not just some of them.

So, as you've heard, this and really this information has been gleaned from conversations with the Rays as well as all public media reports.

As you've heard, it's a mixed use development.

It's three phases, uh 31,000 seats that would be a centerpiece for a new ballpark.

Um the district itself is approximately 130 acres.

There's new residential, commercial, retail, office, and entertainment venues proposed.

Um the site is the existing Hillsborough College Del Maber campus, which is immediately across the street to the west from the uh Raymond James Stadium where the Tampa Bay Buccaneers play.

The rays indicate that Hillsborough College is to be reconstructed as part of their proposal.

From what we understand from news reports, the governor has pledged 150 million dollars uh for that rebuild.

Um we know that no local funds are proposed in any of the options that we're presenting to you.

Um we also want to make sure that that we note that the cost of the facility is really the raise estimate.

That's 2.3 billion dollars.

And they initially have asked us for 1.15 billion, but as Tom will explain to you, that has been reduced in the MOU.

Um we still want to make sure that we're getting the best value possible.

So we have consistently advocated for value engineering so that we can make sure that the ballpark amenities are things that are suitable for public use and not just adding adding luxuries or things that would be solely for the private team or or any events that they may have.

Finally, the uh construction deadline is April 2029.

And I can tell you that from staff's perspective, that's a very aggressive timeline.

We think that there's still a lot of work that needs to be done.

I know that this board wants to get the information as quickly as possible.

We're working as hard as we can, I can assure you, uh, sometimes around the clock to try and do the analysis and make sure the information we're getting and providing to you is accurate.

You heard from AECOM and you saw, I'll just briefly summarize there's 7.6 million square feet in total development.

Uh 1.7 square feet is planned by the Rays and their development partners.

Uh 5.9 million square feet is to be market-driven.

In other words, as the development matures, there will be more development.

There's, as Dylan expressed, there's a little bit of uncertainty as to what types it might be or when it might materialize.

The 30-year gross fiscal impact from the confirmed available sources is about 2.7 billion, as Dylan explained in his revised slide.

Those are ad valorum taxes for both the city and the county, state and county sales taxes, tourism development tax, and we have also included in here a proposed 8% ticket sales surcharge.

Phase one assessed values are estimated to be 1.4 billion in 2034.

The total assessed values are estimated to be 4.8 billion for the entire stadium district in 2058, excluding, of course, the ballpark and Hillsboro College, because they are immune from property taxation.

And that of course assumes that the county owns the ballpark.

The direct economic impacts, as Dylan stated, total about $63 billion.

Indirect impacts brings the total to $75 billion.

Our guiding principles have been applied consistently throughout this process.

We wanted to make absolutely sure that the RAIS and the public and you as the board knew that we were not inclined to jeopardize the county's three AAA bond ratings, nor were we inclined to take on development risk.

And finally, we are not inclined to provide local public dollars for items that don't have a public benefit.

Now I know there's a lot more detail that we're going to be talking about.

I'm going to turn it over to Tom to go over some of the financial information, and then I'll be back when he talks about that.

Good afternoon, Tom.

Good afternoon, Commissioners.

Tom Fessler, Chief Financial Administrator.

Today I was going to be covering with you kind of the financial aspects of the proposed project.

As Mr.

Horwadell stated, the RAIS funding request is $1.15 billion, their original request, and that represented 50% of the total stadium project.

Their request had re been reduced to one $1 billion $1 million, $750 million from the county, and $251 million from the City of Tampa.

This reduction is not necessarily because of a reduced expectation.

It's because of some reclassification of certain funding sources from the public side to the private side of the ledger.

The framework of the funding options that we're going to present to you today are still under discussion between the county, the city, and the rays.

Nothing has been committed to at this point.

Again, we continue to evaluate things.

The options today are designed to achieve as much of the raise funding requests as we can with viable funding options.

You will likely find some of these funding options challenging to approve.

We had limit limited ability to get to the $1 billion or the $750 on the county side without looking at every available option possible.

However, we have made best efforts and we have been negotiating with the RAIS in good faith.

Adding additional funding options at this point or increasing the amounts that we're proposing today, we believe would start to impact our guiding principles that Greg just went over.

When identifying options, we have also taken into consideration the fact that as we go into our fiscal year 27 budget process, we are expecting property tax values to be the growth in property taxes to be lower than that's been in the over 10 years.

In addition to that, there has been a legislative change that has taken effect that has eliminated sales tax on commercial leases.

That is having a significant impact on uh the CIT revenues, along with just general economic condition softening and a weaker sales tax uh collections.

These expectations, in addition to still not knowing whether we're going to have to deal with property tax reform and the fiscal year 28 budget.

As you know, the state legislature still has not adopted a budget this year, and there still could be property tax reform that ends up on the ballot this November.

One significant challenge in meeting the funding requests from the RAIS is that there is an expectation that the majority, if not all of the funds will be available during the construction period, which means we have to issue bonds.

When we issue bonds, that means that the proceeds or the dollars available to issue those bonds have to cover not only principal on the on the uh bond issues, but also interest.

So, therefore, on the funding options you see on slide six, the dollars actually available that need to be available to meet those are greater than what showing up on this slide.

The categories that you see here today, there are five of them on this slide.

I will go over some of them on future slides in a little bit more detail are the community investment tax, tourist development taxes, the community redevelopment area revenues reserves, and finally CDBG disaster recovery funds.

In addition to these sources, the state of Florida has donated approximately 130 acres of land to the project, and as Greg said, Governor DeSantis has pledged that there may be up to another 150 million dollars available to rebuild Hillsborough College on the site.

And finally, uh there is an expectation that we from the RAIS that there could be up to 30 million dollars in additional transportation improvements provided by the state.

We wanted to point this out because we believe that when we start talking about public support for the project, that the state contributions are significant and they should be added to the county and city contributions when looking at the total public support for the project.

Um this slide shows that the county and the city are 75 million dollars short of the RAIS original funding request.

Uh I did want to point out that 75 million dollars short means that we are still meeting 93 percent of the objective with the options that we have on the table.

And finally, um, as it relates to this slide, we are committed to continuing our discussions with the RAIS and to further explore the opportunity that's in front of us today.

Now, maybe getting into some of the funding sources a little bit more as we talk about the community investment tax.

In November of 2024, the voters approved an extension of the CIT for an additional 15 years.

The initial project list that was approved by the board was built on an assumption that there would be three percent, an annual three percent revenue growth on this on the extended CIT with a first year revenue amount of 200 million dollars.

The Ray's original estimate of funds that they needed for their project that could come from CIT was $600 million.

This estimate was built on an assumption of annual an annual growth rate of 4%, not 3%, and first year revenues of 220 million dollars.

They believe that these two changes in assumptions would provide for their project while not impacting any of the projects previously approved by the board or the cities.

Um the county and the city has evaluated their assumptions, we believe that they are not realistic.

Um the state of Florida, as I said, has just enacted some legislation that's impacting our CIT revenues to the tune of about 12 to 15 million dollars a year.

So that's fairly significant on 200 million dollars.

Additionally, the economy has softened and we are experiencing weaker collections from the CIT.

So while we are still comfortable going forward with a 200 million dollar first year assumption, we are not comfortable that we can support a 220 million dollar assumption.

Therefore, that 600 million dollars has come down because of that.

The next thing, or the next assumption is that that I'll discuss in the next couple of slides is the growth factor of 4%.

Uh, we believe that that growth factor and assumption needs to come down to closer to 3.7 percent, and I will explain why.

The current year, 30-year CIT, which expires in November, has a growth rate that has been averaging just over 4%.

So the renewed CIT, as I had said on December 1st, is built on an average growth rate of 3%.

As previously stated, the race strategy was to fund a portion of the project with the difference between the planned growth of 3% and the historical average growth of 4%.

We believe that if we were to move forward with this type of uh arrangement or assumption that we would need like a make whole pos make hole provision within any agreement.

What I mean by that is that if we fall short of the revenue expectation of 4% by any amount, the raise would need to cover the difference.

When we are exploring that option, we had some conversations with our uh financial advisor and our bond council, and there's a bond test or a tax law out there basically that indicates that if we are at a 4% level, that would be considered a private private investment into the the project, and that we would have to issue tax uh taxable bonds bonds versus tax exempt bonds.

That would decrease the bond proceeds by about 100 million dollars.

So that was very significant.

So what we did is we took a look at it and we said, what can we do that where we can still issue tax exempt bonds and what level can we go to?

And that level was 3.7% versus 4%.

When we issue uh non our tax exempt bonds at 3.7 percent, it would still be a loss of about 50 million dollars in bond proceeds, but that would be much better than having taxable bonds where we lose 100 million dollars in proceeds.

The bottom line on the CIT, and this is this is the funding source where I will spend the most time.

I will speed things up after this, is that we cannot accept their Ray CIT assumption leading to a $600 million being available for their project.

Our alternate proposal proposes an increased growth rate assumption from three three percent to 3.7 percent, and also uh utilization of county and city um current project budget combined of 325 million in order to create 336 million in current bond proceeds that could be available for the project at the beginning of the project.

Um as far as the tourist development taxes go, the uh the proposed option is 268 million dollars.

This includes a 35-year bond.

This would be repaid with six cent tourist development tax and and backed up by one of the first three cents for the bond issue.

We are also uh proposing as a as a potential option using 40 million dollars of current reserves in the first three cent and the six cent TDT.

I did need to point out that the current that the six cent TDT is currently being used.

Uh 30 percent of that is being used to support visit Tampa Bay.

That sent that six cent is also being used to support the county's cultural assets program, and we have a two million dollar a year commitment to the Tampa Convention Center through 2031.

When we went back when we have evaluated the CIT assumptions and we and we realized that the revenues were going to drop far below the 600 million dollars that the that the rays were expecting, um we did go back to the drawing board and we looked at you know, basically we looked in the couch cushions to see where we could find some revenue.

What we did is we started evaluating our unrestricted reserves.

We have unrestricted reserves in our budget in order to provide budget flexibility and be able to address annual needs and potential opportunities that come up as well as is revenue shortfalls.

Having strong reserves is considered to be a best practice.

Um, however, when we went back and looked at across our unrestricted reserves, we were able to come up with, and we think we could come up with about 132 million dollars in cash by accessing current reserves.

Um that would reduce our budget flexibility, but we uh also would still have some we will still have unrestricted reserves with some some flexibility in the budget, it would just be at a reduced level.

And with that, I will turn it back over to Greg so we can go over other potential funding opportunities.

Thanks, Tom.

As you can appreciate, this is a very complex and detailed analysis, and we've spent considerable time trying to outline funding options for you.

These again, as Tom said, are not recommendations, we're not there yet.

Um there are other issues that we want to make sure that we explore.

The other potential funding options we think are worthy of discussion.

Um we heard from Dylan earlier about the uh CDD.

We think that that should be explored.

We know that the state of Florida has uh transportation improvements that the raises have indicated they're going to fund, so we want to make sure that we nail that down as well.

There's opportunity zone and new market tax credits that uh are available.

They were renewed last year in the big beautiful bill in July of uh 25.

So we want to make sure that we investigate those.

They could provide a significant um boost to the project.

However, I should note that staff believes that those federal dollars should offset any local contribution.

Um there are other parking revenues that we need to discuss.

We think that that has a potential sizable positive impact on the cash flow overall that might be available from the county.

There are a number of other deal points and other considerations, and I won't bore you with reading all of these, but I will note that the ownership of the park after the lease term, the 35-year lease term, is a significant issue for us, as is who's paying for CapEx under our current facilities.

Teams are responsible for paying for CapEx, and we think that that's appropriate here as well.

The value engineering is a very critical point for us.

We believe that we need to have uh the right to review and approve not just the drawings, but also monitor throughout construction just to make sure that if there is some savings that they get uh distributed equally among the partners and not necessarily used to substitute something that the private party would otherwise be responsible for.

Um we have tax collector that needs to have that facility relocated, so we need to think about how that factors into this overall project as well.

Finally, uh there is an impact on other sports facilities, and as has been reported in the media, there are other teams that are interested in this conversation, and I'll just leave it at that.

Next steps in timeline, there are a number of significant steps that need to be taken.

Um there is the approval of any MOU that would have to come before this board, City of Tampa, City Council, uh, the CRA for the City of Tampa, and the rates.

We want to make sure that all the partners have the opportunity to review it and they understand the terms of the deal, assuming that a deal can be constructed.

Public hearings, the board has mentioned that you all want to have some public hearings, public discussion.

We would need to schedule those and have the time to pursue that.

There's legislative uh discussions that need to occur with the funding that has been pledged for the college.

We know there's budget appropriations now that are ongoing.

Um we have heard that there's some money in there.

We don't have a guarantee that all of the money that's been pledged might be available this year.

We don't know what the structure is, other than to say we have been told that it will be forthcoming in future years.

Finally, there's um the planning commission and city zoning processes.

If that needs to occur, I know the Rays are looking at an alternative process.

It wouldn't necessarily require them to go through a full-blown comp plan or city zoning process.

We're on the outside looking in on that process.

It is controlled by both the planning commission and the city of Tampa.

So my last point is that the MOU really can't be fully put together, and I'd hesitate to say that it's gonna be by a date certain without these items being resolved.

I know there's been discussion about bringing something forward on May 6th.

I can assure you, county administrator has um worked as hard as the rest of us to try and meet whatever timeline we can to get something before you, but this is a complex deal.

I I keep saying that because I think sometimes it might be represented that um, hey, this has been done, it's all ready to go.

Why don't why don't you just vote on it?

We're not at the stage yet with staff where we feel comfortable with all the dollar amounts that are being proposed and how those might impact the county budget.

We are interested in moving forward to get to the MOU.

So that's what we're looking for today in the board discussion.

What points are we looking for, or what can we take away from this so that we can factor that in to a subsequent MOU?

And with that, Tom and I, and I'm sure the county administrator and county attorney are available for questions.

All right, thank you, Greg.

Appreciate you you and Tom's presentation going to board discussion.

Commissioner Wolstool.

Thank you.

Hey, Tom, I've just got some quick questions for you.

And no one, no one up here doubts staff's professionalism, and even when we disagree, you guys work really hard to get us all the information we want.

I don't think anybody's doubting that.

Um, could you bring back up slide 11 real quick?

And I do agree today.

We're having a workshop about the financial structure that's being proposed.

And I do agree that certain elements of it should not be negotiated publicly.

The rent, the MOU rent I saw everyone's gonna have questions about that.

When are we gonna discuss the MOU?

Is it that's not today, right?

Yeah, because everyone's gonna have questions about those things, and you guys can negotiate what you think is is fair and equitable back to the taxpayers.

But in terms of financial structure, we've had conversations now on Commissioner Hagan's item um where we motioned, um, I think unanimously.

Did we unanimously motion to approve you guys to talk?

Yeah, I thought so.

Um on February the 4th.

It ends in saying or begins with saying to be clear, number three, no general revenue funding is being considered.

And that's what we motioned approved for you guys to discuss.

But which bullet points on here, and and for the public's interest, when I say general revenue, I mean your property taxes, which are being considered to be removed, which I'm definitely going to be voting for if the if the legislature gets that.

Um, call your senators, tell them to support uh the house's um bill to remove our property taxes.

Which one of these are property taxes?

Um Commissioner, I would say the majority of them are general would are coming from general fund sources.

Um capital project reallocations.

I'd have to look at specifically what projects we would be asking to reallocate.

There could be there's some different funding sources there.

Um pre-funding the pet resources facility would be probably ultimate the the source when from which those funds came would probably have been general funds.

Okay.

Um I I asked you, so we in January or February, we all had many months.

We had a nice young lady, um, Miss Barker come through, talk to us about details of the lightning deal.

Even I voted yes on it, um, because I think the tourist dollars, they are I don't want to call a tax harmless, but to the local community, they're pretty harmless and they are a benefit, they're they're a benefit.

And that deal was very straightforward, it was not convoluted.

It was, hey, we're gonna come in with our portion of the money.

I told them I disagreed with their percentage, you know, whatever.

We had pain points, it was 70 30, just from 54 46, it's whatever.

And they presented a list.

You guys presented a uh a history um and you put per proposed a three percent methodology growth of the fifth cent, the sixth cent is identical to the fifth cent, right?

Um I and were those those were provided to you, right?

That was exhibit A of that um that briefing in December, I think it was or January, and we ended up giving them a quarter billion dollars where it showed.

Do you have the printout um that my aid supplied to you, applying that same growth methodology through 2061, which would be a 35-year repayment um year by year?

I I do.

It was provided to me before the meeting, yes.

And do you are you able to authenticate that growth number from the year 2027 through 2061, 2062, applying the same 3% growth methodology on a rebate program, that that number in total would be 738 million dollars roughly?

Um I would assume, Commissioner, if that if the math is correct on the calculation that it would be.

So if if we were able to strike that, and I would I would um move to approve that deal immediately, um, to be clear to provide the Tampa Bay raise almost three quarters of a billion dollars of our local tourist development taxes from the six sixth cent on some type of rebate program, that's gross numbers, they supply their money, we supply our money, which is a partnership, which is what we've um proposed, a public-private partnership.

Um I will provide that information digitally to you guys.

I I used the personal note strategy uh to make sure, so I had to slide that in there, uh, Ms.

Mandel, um, to make sure that um I'll make that available to the public, but everybody can confirm that um a 35-year rebate program out of the six cents of the tourist development dollars, using the exact same rebate program in partnership that we use with the Tampa Bay Lightning for their 15 years extension, would provide around 738 million dollars to the Tampa Bay race.

Um, and I don't understand has that been presented as an alternative?

I mean, that's basically our number.

So I will step in just for a moment.

Sure.

I think it's important to note that yes, staff has proposed a reimbursement basis uh funding option.

Okay.

That has not been accepted by the rays.

Um there may be an opportunity depending upon the direction received by this board for us to continue to pursue that.

Um it is important to note that the rays have indicated they need the local public funding up front, and by upfront we mean during the construction period, that is the first three years opening in 2029.

So our perspective is that we are open to any kind of reimbursement process, whether that's wholly reimbursement or partially reimbursement.

And I think that that is something that that if that's the direction of this board, we can take that back in our conversation.

Well, I I guess that brings me to my next question then.

Um and you did not pay me to do that.

I know, I know.

But it does bring me to my next question.

I um this presentation, it makes it look like ooh, you know, the board is board has to do this, but there's many options out there, and I was confused why we haven't proposed this.

Have we requested?

I've seen I've seen some back and forths where it looks like other agencies have requested information from the Tampa Bay race that was refused or declined to provide to them, including this AECOM report that we just went through.

Have we requested any document to substantiate since it sounds like we are being required to front load the taxpayers' money onto the on the front of this deal?

Does any document exist to substantiate that they have their portion of the money?

Because a rebate program sounds very fair.

Um you give yours, we'll give ours at the same time.

Uh Commissioner, um slide 13.

Uh, there's a bullet indicates that one of the open items is a verification of financial capacity of the raise ownership group.

We that's an open item.

Okay.

Then I'm very concerned, and um I will make that document that financial analysis available to the public, which I'm sure staff will be able to authenticate the numbers.

Maybe I'm offered off by 10 mil or so.

Who knows?

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

And I should have mentioned this when we were going through it.

Staff wants to make absolutely sure that it is a surety that we accept and that it is ironclad and can provide the performance that is promised.

All right, thank you.

Let's please be mindful of the time, Commissioner Miller and Commissioner Cohen.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, so I'm not sure, Mr.

Howdo, if this question's for you or for um Mr.

Gilman, but in looking at the economic impact studies, there's about a 20 million, I'm sorry, 20 billion dollar gap between um what the rays presented is the economic impact and um AE comms.

Could you talk to that for me, please?

So just to reiterate the question is why there's a difference in the economic impacts that were presented by RCL Co.

in their report and outside.

Yes, yes.

So that my answer would be similar to a question about um the difference in the development program itself, in that there are several assumptions built into an economic impact model that could and would likely vary between RCLCO's analysis and ours.

I know for a fact that they used what are called uh RIMS II multipliers from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, while you we use some from a uh private input output model uh service known as Lightcast.

So already we have a difference in the multipliers themselves.

Um in our report, we did supply detailed economic uh impact figures for each of the various uses and the industries that we were using to represent those impacts in the multipliers they are in.

Um we don't have any of that detail from RCL co and it's not that it doesn't exist, um it's just that we haven't been given access to it.

Um you do have to purchase those multipliers from the BEA, so we would have to do that in order to see them.

Um again, it's uh it's a long timeline.

Inflation rates can vary.

The underlying we already know that the underlying development project varies uh in terms of what we came up in our supportable development analysis between uh that and what they come came up with in their analysis.

So those are just a few of potential differences.

Thank you for that.

And um, I understand we only have an hour and a half, but for the public's consumption, um, it is your job to provide an analysis based on assumptions, correct?

Correct.

Okay, thank you very much.

I have another question, sir if that's okay.

There's um many of the calls to my office are related around the traffic concerns specifically um around the college, and in both uh presentations we talked about the potential funding from the Florida Department of Transportation.

Um I do see um F DOT in the audience.

Is it possible for him to come up and speak?

Sure.

Justin Hall, if you would be quick.

I'll be quick.

Sorry.

I had one more noise.

I can get out and get back.

I'm sorry.

Thank you, sir.

Would you speak please to um what you know or the most current information um on what the state is committed to to help alleviate traffic concerns?

Sure.

So we've been uh, as with any large development, you know, we work with the developer to understand what are the traffic impacts uh, not only vehicular traffic impacts, but pedestrian impacts.

So uh we've been working with the developers team uh on you know what improvements need to be made uh based on the traffic assumptions, and so we have already programmed several projects to address certain traffic uh concerns, whether it be uh pedestrian bridges for pedestrian movement, uh certain intersection improvements, some capacity improvements around the proposed site.

And the funding sources would be there's state funding source funded sources, and uh these I tell everybody that's not taking away from my existing program.

These are additional funds that were brought in from the outside, so they're not taking away from anything locally.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you, sir.

Commissioner Cohen.

Uh thank you very much.

Um, before I make a couple of comments, I just want to ask, uh, and I I think this is for Mr.

Horwadell or Mr.

Fessler.

Uh, on page six, where it's uh listed CDBG disaster relief stormwater uh 30 million dollars.

What is that exactly?

Great question.

So we have C D B G DR dollars that were a result of the hurricane season of 2024.

This area flooded.

There are improvements that could be beneficial, not just for the stadium.

Again, this is our thought process, not just for the stadium, but for the entirety of Drew Park and the immediate surrounding area.

Some of the improvements could be done on the proposed stadium site, the stadium district, and that would benefit the surrounding community.

So it would in essence require approval from HUD.

We would not include it unless this board felt that that was an appropriate funding mechanism to help assist with stormwater relief from the entire surrounding area.

So it's an option because the stormwater dollars were already going to be focused in that particular geographic area anyway.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Um, and then I had another question I wanted to go back to Ms.

Wise for just a minute.

Um I know that there will be ample time to discuss, discuss the issue of using the CIT as part of this project, but I think it's very important to point out as we were going over the the review prior to this.

Um the money that's being designated from the CIT is over and above the three percent growth that was going was planned to deliver a full list of projects that we advertise to the public.

So what I'm saying is all of the things that we advertise to the public, the transportation improvements, the nine new fire stations, the public safety uh designations, all of that is off the top and safe before this expenditure is being considered, correct?

That is correct.

The only category that we were looking at is that community fit facilities session.

Right.

So the transportation work, the lithia pinecrest, uh that that's all in the current CIT projection, and that's unchanged.

Correct.

That's all the transportation and public works, public safety, public utilities, all untouched.

Okay, because uh I'm sure Walt will get into a larger discussion about the CIT use, but I think it's important just uh set the parameters of of where we are.

Um I just won't want to really compliment the staff uh in your negotiations thus far.

You know, we gave you a seven to zero vote and asked you to go and and start working on this, and there's been a lot of pressure to come up with a vote uh date and to say when we were gonna vote on it, and you know, to to sort of in many ways put the cart in front of the horse.

And what I see is that you're going through a very methodical process.

You've identified a significant number of issues that would need to be resolved before we can actually get to a deal.

And what you've asked us for is some guidance as to what are some of the things that we are particularly concerned about.

Um, you know, sometimes in life where you stand depends on where you sit.

And in my particular case, I sit as the representative of the single member district where this is proposed to be built.

And so I particularly want to point out that one of the big concerns that I have is that the community benefits agreement aspect of this be negotiated transparent, and that the neighborhoods be very much apart, uh, the neighborhoods and the business owners be very much apart of shaping what those community benefits agreements are going to look like, and that we have some assurance of what they're gonna look like uh as we as we move forward.

Commissioner Miller uh touched on the traffic, but the traffic concerns are very real.

It's been pointed out to me that this is half the size, this facility of Raymond James Stadium, that that events will never occur on the same day.

But even so, we need to see the analysis and the planning that shows that there's a plan to deal with the traffic, at least until we have some transit options to supplement for people in terms of their car.

The other thing is that the tax collector's office there is a very real issue.

For people in my district, for people countywide, it is the busiest tax collector's office.

It's the place people go to renew their driver's licenses and license plates, and we need to make sure that the expenditure that taxpayers have put forth to provide that facility is covered and that the tax collector is on board with whatever the plan is.

And if it does, we need to see why.

And if it doesn't, the the savings could easily be used to help satisfy some of these gaps that you've identified.

I also just wanted to point out that the other teams uh are still a very important consideration for all of us, and we are all going to be waiting to hear uh how they feel in terms of they've all uh expressed to me that they are working with the county to feel assurance that this proposal will not negatively impact them, but I would expect that them to uh to be public in in terms of whatever concerns they may have or or whatever they want to say in support of the project.

I think it's really important um that they weigh in.

And then finally, I just want to say that it's very, very important in something like this that we protect the taxpayer, and I think that your requirement that the county not uh bur be burdened with the development risk going forward is a very, very important component of this negotiation.

So those are the fundamental points that uh that you've made that I think are really important going forward, and it's my hope after today that you'll just continue to negotiate and work on this.

Uh, I think that you know, from my perspective, I would love to be able to vote yes on this, but I can only vote yes on it if I'm absolutely convinced that it's the right thing for the community and for the taxpayers.

And I think it's a marvelous opportunity from for us from a development point of view and also from the idea that we would have major league baseball here.

It's been a dream of this community for a long time.

It's been something we've been talking about for a long time.

But at the end of the day, I recognize that it's it's going to be your ability to put together a deal that will work.

And I just want to tell you that I appreciate all the work that you've all done so far.

That includes the Sports Authority and the County Attorney's Office and the City of Tampa.

And um, I I look forward to to seeing where where we come out on all this.

All right, Commissioner Myers.

Um, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I'm gonna just make sum it up real quickly.

We all know, and hopefully, we won't erase here, but having a 75 million dollar shortfall, I'm hoping that between the two parties we can come to an agreement on the financing where that the county would not be cut short, and that our constituents would be able to receive all those services that we promised them when we voted for the CIT tax in 2024.

And Ms.

Wise, thank you for bringing up the public facility in the dollar mount, because that was one of the issues I was concerned with my briefing with you and Julia the other day.

And so I want the deal to work, but we are short of funding, and the two parties raised and county need to come together to see how we can make the deal work for the best for the county and for the raised, and that our constituents would be promised in have what we say we would do with the CIT tax.

And so we resolved that issue today.

Yes, the CIT tax funds can be used for public facility.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

All right, thank you.

I'm gonna make a couple of comments before we keep going around and around here.

Um first of all, I want to highlight one issue that uh Bonnie and Greg referenced because it's an important one, and that's regarding uh the partnerships with our existing uh sports teams, the uh Lightning Bucks and Yankees.

Uh, in light of some of the chatter that's been circulating, I want to be crystal clear uh that this board and administration values our partnerships with our sports teams, but more importantly, our commitment to them has not changed or been reduced due to the possibility of our future raise ballpark.

Um by the way, I want to congratulate uh the lightning for making the playoffs again this year.

Uh let's take it to the stinking Canadians in the first round.

Uh we are fortunate uh to have these franchises in our community.

They are extremely valuable uh partnerships that extend far beyond uh the wins and losses on the ice and on the field.

While the contractual obligations and agreements are different, they are all county-owned facilities, and this board and administration has consistently through the years recognized uh that it's in our best interest to maintain technologically advanced state-of-the-art facilities.

Some folks might say, why is that?

Well, it's because the NCAA, the NFL, uh the NHL, and promoters have a very high standards on where their major events are held.

Do we want to host a Taylor Swift, a women's final four, or NCAA frozen four, college football national championship.

There are so many concerts and events held at our facilities beyond the sports teams, and I think at times people lose track of that.

Um, that not only improves our residents' quality of life, but generates significant revenue.

For an example, last year alone, Benchmark International Arena hosted 140 events.

I'll give you another example.

There's a band called BTS.

I've never even heard of them.

Apparently, they're a big deal.

Uh we're having three concerts, Raymond James Stadium.

What I'm told is the economic impact of this band is is going to be bigger than Taylor Swift, which netted the county close to, I believe, close to 1.8 million in tax revenues.

So I'm not gonna distinguish between facilities and timing because they're all different.

However, we know that all three of our existing facilities will need future innovations and improvements.

To the administration's credit, while crafting the CIT, they planned ahead and thought about how could we potentially use the CIT to meet our obligations.

It's important to point out that those numbers included for every category and project were essentially placeholders.

No specific funding commitments were made to any team or organization, including one that we recently talked about, Lowry Park Zoo.

Partly because we don't know the actual cost of repairs of improvements or investments that might be made a year from now, two years from now, five years from now, ten years from now.

Um, and as an example, one of our teams, the Buccaneers, waited until last week to begin sharing their thoughts on the next renovation agreement.

And we've been begging them for probably five years to have a conversation with us.

So my point is no actual agreements or commitments were made because we didn't know.

However, recognizing that they're all valuable assets, we felt it was important to ensure that all of our county and community facilities were eligible for CIT funding.

But again, I I want all three franchises to hear loud and clear that the doors open for future innovation agreements.

We recognize these are critical partnerships.

They are in the county's best interest, are in fact imminent, and we're planning on just how we can they can potentially be structured.

So I thought that was important to highlight.

Um other things real quick, and then we'll we'll keep going.

Um Greg, Greg did I think he did a great job touching on this, but I can say with certainty, and I'm gonna ask Julia uh to correct me if I'm wrong, the final product of the MOU would likely look dramatically different than what's been disseminated.

Was that accurate?

That is accurate.

Okay, I just wanted to say that.

Um not going to go into the 75 billion economic impact and all the numbers because frankly it's a little mind-boggling.

Um, however, I do have two questions uh that I feel truly uh reflects the generational opportunity that we have before us and why it warrants serious and continued consideration.

Um I think this is gonna be probably for Tom.

Tom, you still here?

Um I was on this board uh decades ago when we well recognized Drew Park was blighted and warranted creating a CRA.

Uh unfortunately, 22 years later, not much has changed.

Uh Tom, the Drew Drew Park CRA was created in 2005, right?

That's correct.

Okay.

Over the last 22 years, the CRA has generated how much revenue, county and city combined?

Uh the increment revenue uh combined is approximately 28 million dollars.

Okay.

How much property tax revenue will this project generate?

We have to acknowledge we're assuming or we're including the assumptions that we're incorporated.

But what we've been presented, how much property tax revenue will this project generate over 30 years?

I believe their AECOM report indicated about 97 million dollars.

Okay.

So 28 million dollars over 22 years compared to 907 million dollars over 30 years.

28 million over 22 years, 97 million over 30 years.

That's very interesting.

And this is only one revenue stream that will be generated.

Um thanks, Tom.

Julia, uh one question.

There was some talk about, and I know this is a serious issue, it's it was involved included in our unresolved issues, but I'm still unclear about this.

Has the tax exempt bond issue been resolved?

I know where we land where staff landed on being comfortable, but has that issue been been resolved?

It hasn't completely been resolved.

We're working through that issue, but that is a significant issue as it relates to how you um put this deal together.

And we're continuing to work on it and we're continuing to discuss it.

Okay.

Last thing I'm gonna say, and then we'll we'll go back around.

Uh the Razor made it very clear that for many reasons there's sense of urgency to either reach an agreement or cut bait, and that's my terms, not theirs.

Uh significant progress has been made.

However, as Greg uh suggested, uh a number of issues uh still need to be resolved, and uh staff has all has identified additional funding options that can be considered.

So I know Commissioner Cohen touched on this, but I would encourage staff to continue working on the remaining deal points internally and with the team and make every effort possible to resolve the outstanding issues in advance of our May 6th meeting.

And when I say that, I do recognize that this will require the team to make concessions on a number of issues.

Okay, so with that, we got three more speakers, and we're scheduled to end it this time, so let's try and be brief if possible.

Commissioner Cameron Cepeda, then Commissioner Wolstell.

Okay.

Yes, um, thank you all for the presentations today.

They were really awesome.

Um thank you for your time, hard work that you put into it.

However, um I would like to say that for me personally, I do not want to see any burden being put on the taxpayers.

And also um, my other biggest concern is um the traffic um that's already there on Dale Mabry.

So um that's already horrific in the area.

And um it was good to see that the public funding options available from the um state, however, that of the 30 million dollars is from the for the state from the state, it actually seems that um is more pedestrian improvements, so I don't see how that would really alleviate any traffic there because there's only so much space there, and there's really no other room to have extra lanes that would alleviate traffic in that area.

So um those are my two biggest concerns there.

No burden being put on the taxpayers, and also the traffic already in the area.

Thank you.

I thank you, Commissioner Wolstool and then Commissioner Bowles.

Mine will be mine'll be real brief, and I don't the quality of life is this will bring to the uh residents of West Tampa is gonna be nothing less than detrimental at best and abusive at worst because of the it's not a traffic situation, it's a parking situation.

It's cars in the ditch, blocking off of lanes, etc.

etc.

And there's been mis mixed communications about what the parking is going to be.

Bonnie, I just wanted to make a I I actually do not know the answer to this question.

I I don't know.

It's about bonding.

Now they've referenced the public facility bucket, which is an internal bucket.

But when you but to my understanding, when you go to bond, a sales tax, you can't you can't bucket.

It's just this is the revenue source, right?

And this is the amount that we're bonding.

So I'm sorry, I can answer it depends.

Okay.

So we could um pledge a particular revenue source, like half-cent sales tax or CIT, but there's also a non-advilorum bucket of non-advalorum revenues that we often pledge as well.

Um, so we have some debt outstanding with but each of those.

So it really just depends on that structure.

But you you can't go to the bond um courts and say, hey, we we have this on our um pretty sheet that says interlocal whatever public facilities only be 597.

So if the CIT revenues fall flat, let's say instead of 3.7, it goes to D point 2.3 because there's not enough smoothing over a 15-year period.

Um they don't care if it if it's not performing, they want their money, right?

Right.

So in this particular case, then we have issued CIT debt before, I think is your example.

So if we issue CIT debt, it's the whole CIT revenue that's pledged toward repayment because you have to ensure that you have enough debt service coverage, and of course we would have enough debt service coverage.

We do the same thing when we issue utility bonds.

You know, we don't just issue it for the one-water project, we issue utility bonds and all the revenues are pledged toward repayment.

So I just wanted to be clear when we started trying to say, oh, it's only the public facilities.

If we issue bonds against the CIT, the whole thing is is eligible for the debt coverage, right?

Yes.

Okay.

And and and the other point I just wanted to point out, you know, the Tampa Sports Authority notoriously for 25 years lost this community um almost 33 million dollars of property taxes to pay for the operations of the buck stadiums because of the um arduous revenue sharing agreement, and solely because of Eric Hart, who's in the audience has turned that around and for the first years, we are no longer using your property taxes to pay for that two million dollar minimum court, which we lost uh Poe versus Hillsborough a long time ago.

So which does bring a concern that we're not gonna talk about today, which is what concerts would be harvested from the hot outdoor buck stadium potentially for this new stadium, and would that reintroduce an issue for that two million dollar a year revenue sharing contract?

So we'll talk about that later, Eric.

Thank you.

Um I'll keep this brief.

I agree.

Eric Screw doing a great job over there.

Um I will say this that each one of you somehow pulled one off my list of uh points that I wanted to make, and I think that's a fantastic idea that thinks that kind of maybe shows that we're all kind of rowing the boat in the same direction.

We all have a uh concern that we're doing the right thing and making the right choices here.

Um I will wanted at least very uh to say at the very least that my reward um excuse me.

My focus remains on a risk-reward basis here, and that has to be a balance that I'm looking at.

And whether it's uh this development, and I'm not just saying the stadium itself, because I'm not looking at as a single point that the whole project itself generates durable long-term fiscal returns that translate into real usable revenue.

And that's what I look at because as I think we've had members of our audience, I see a few out there that may have been at some of our public comment in the past, that we talk about building fire stations.

I thought that's one that we bring up, but we can build fire stations, but we can't operate them.

The only way we can operate fire stations is by building our advalorum dollars and building our operational dollars.

And so if we're gonna look at those type of priorities, those core county priorities, we gotta find ways to do it.

And that's only gonna come when we're not looking at assumptions anymore.

We need real usable long-term um in end user figures.

So, and I think if was it in Gillam, he would probably agree that uh the black box uh uh programs that you guys use to make these assumptions, whether it's RIMI or Info or the other ones that um you can't try to compare each other.

You you gotta use the same tool to to get the same thing done.

So I think that's where a lot of the problems are coming in uh with the the disparities there and with the assumptions.

So I think with um getting those under control, timing execution and um some of the other things we can get that and hopefully have a path to yes, but I'm still skeptical and still cautious about how I'm going to proceed.

Thank you.

Okay, and in closing, I I want to uh thank staff.

Uh they've been working tirelessly to get us to to this point.

Uh as we've heard we still got a number of issues to go, but um they've really done a the heck of a job working working night and day to get us here, so I want to personally thank them.

I also want to thank the board members for each of your uh insightful and thoughtful uh comments uh today, I think that will help uh staff continue to uh to work diligently um in an effort to to come to an agreement and um we'll we'll see what transpires.

So with that uh we're adjourned.