The Falcons organization has "publicly pegged the cost" of Mercedes-Benz Stadium at $1.5B, but team Owner Arthur Blank "cites a higher number in a coming documentary he commissioned about the construction and impact of the stadium, saying near the film’s conclusion: 'We ended up being close to $2 billion,'" according to Tim Tucker of the ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION. AMB Group Senior VP & General Counsel Mike Egan, who oversaw the stadium project, said, “I’m sure to Arthur it felt like $2 billion, but the actual, all-in, everything cost" was between $1.75-1.8B. He added the $1.5B number was the "hard construction cost." Egan said that the "total cost was a 'moving target' that didn’t 'settle out' until a couple of years after the stadium opened." The two-hour documentary, "Rising Up: A Westside Story," will premiere at 8:00pm ET tonight on the public TV station GPB. The film from David Lewis Productions "tells the dual story of the stadium and of its troubled neighboring communities." Egan: “Arthur commissioned this film well before the (stadium) project really got underway." The stadium "originally had a construction budget" of $1B. At a meeting captured on camera, Blank "sternly told project leaders gathered around a conference table: '1.4 (billion) is your number. ... I am done going to the piggy-bank.'" Asked in the film what he would have done differently, Falcons President & CEO Rich McKay said, "Probably in the early design phase, fully understanding the impact of the roof structure. ... It led to a lot of angst. It led to a lot of costs. It’s led to a spectacular building" (ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 11/21).
