The Pirates and Steelers announced Saturday that they
would contribute $40M and $76.5M, respectively, to proposed
new stadiums, "ending almost three months of haggling" with
City of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County leaders, according
to Rich Lord of the Pittsburgh TRIBUNE-REVIEW. The Pirates'
contribution to the $203-$209M stadium will come from
ballpark naming rights, ticket surcharges and other stadium
revenues. The Steelers would not say what their
contribution to the $210M stadium would consist of, but city
officials said it includes ticket surcharges. The teams
will control the construction process. Lord reported that
despite the increase in the Steelers' contribution,
originally set around $50M, the deals with the teams will
increase the amount of private money in the $803M Plan B by
only $9.5M, to $180M, because the new deals count the
anticipated $22M from 5% ticket surcharges as part of the
team contributions. In the original plan, surcharges were a
separate line item (Pittsburgh TRIBUNE-REVIEW, 6/21). In
Pittsburgh, Robert Dvorchak reported that with the deals in
place, "the only remaining hurdle is a vote" by the Regional
Asset District (RAD) to approve the use of $13.4M a year
from a county sales tax surcharge. That vote is expected by
early July. If the RAD board approves, the city and county
will begin to borrow the money that will be used for stadium
construction. Dvorchak added that in addition to the RAD
tax and the state's pledge to pay one-third of the stadium
costs, another "principal" source of public money will come
from a tax paid on hotel rooms (POST-GAZETTE, 6/21).
AN A PLAN? Also in Pittsburgh, Ron Cook writes that the
Steelers' contribution "is more significant than most
football teams have coughed up for a stadium," and adds that
local officials "did the best they could under the trying
circumstances of having two team owners ask -- no, demand --
new stadiums at the same time" (POST-GAZETTE, 6/22).
