The Triple-A Int'l League Pawtucket Red Sox' ballpark financing plan unveiled by Rhode Island House leadership yesterday "would use future tax revenue in a large area of the city's core to pay for a new ballpark and surrounding infrastructure," according to a front-page piece by Patrick Anderson of the PROVIDENCE JOURNAL. The plan would also "give public officials the power to seize land" for the ballpark by "eminent domain." The legislation "removes explicit state guarantees" on more than $80M in "potential borrowing authorized in a bill passed by the Senate earlier this year." To "shift that risk to investors, the House plan would have higher borrowing cost than the Senate version," which estimated $14M in borrowing cost on top of the $83M price tag for the ballpark. How much more expensive the House plan will be is "unclear from the revised legislation, which only specifies the team's contribution to the project, without borrowing costs." The costs are the "same as the Senate version:" $45M, with $12M upfront and $33M in bonds. The ballpark "would be owned by the city-controlled Pawtucket Redevelopment Agency, which would issue the bonds and lease" the ballpark to the team. To finance the project without a state guarantee, the House plan would "dedicate both city property taxes and a swath of state taxes (such as sales tax, income tax and hotel tax) to paying off the 30-year bonds" (PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, 5/31).
