As the new Atlanta Braves stadium continues to rise out of the ground, construction crews will work in 2015 to maintain the tight schedule that will allow the ballpark and much of the private, mixed-use development to open in Cobb County in April 2017.
But, in 2014, many of the questions revolved around how the deal came together, what the costs would be and what it will take to succeed.
Here is a recap of some of the key stadium issues The Atlanta Journal-Constitution took on for readers, with a peek ahead to how they might play out in the coming year.
What will it cost?
The AJC first reported in April that the county planned to borrow about $18 million more for stadium construction than the $368 million consistently cited to the public since the announcement in November 2013.
The newspaper found that the county planned to build all of the borrowing costs, and approximately 15 months of initial interest on the debt, into the bond issuance. Commission Chairman Tim Lee called the extra debt an “insignificant issue” that “nobody really understands or cares about.”
One month later, the county commission approved borrowing of up to $397 million with annual debt payments of up to $25 million — or $1 million more than the public had previously been told.
The county’s financing plan was approved by a Cobb Superior Court judge in July, but has been appealed to the state Supreme Court, which will hear the case in February.
The county can’t proceed with the bond issuance until the high court confirms that the plan is Constitutional.
Interest rates at the time of the issuance will determine the exact amount the county has to borrow. The Braves are currently covering all construction costs at the site, which amounted to more than $53 million last year.
Bridge to SunTrust
Cobb County taxpayers will be on the hook for at least half of a bridge spanning Interstate 285, connecting the new ballpark with the Cobb Galleria area, the newspaper reported in November.
The county rolled out the idea of a bridge — which would carry a shuttle bus and pedestrians — just days after the Braves announced their move to Cobb County. Lee told the public that the cost of the bridge was already built into the stadium budget and that the estimated cost, which has grown to $9.5 million from $3 million, would not be funded by local tax dollars.
But, after reviewing documents related to the bridge, the AJC learned that the county was telling state and federal transportation officials that it planned on covering half of the bridge’s cost with local tax money.
The county calls the bridge’s cost estimate “conceptual,” meaning the exact cost of the bridge won’t be known until its design is further refined, and it has decided to design the bridge so that it only supports pedestrian traffic, which will save money.
County transportation officials will continue working on the bridge’s design and attempting to secure federal funding for the bridge this year.
Who negotiated the deal?
Dan McRae, a private attorney who performs work for a local development authority, negotiated the preliminary agreement with the Braves without the knowledge of County Attorney Deborah Dance — the only person at the county authorized to hire outside legal counsel.
Lee secretly hired the attorney to negotiate the so-called Memorandum of Understanding, which sealed the public investment in construction of the new stadium, as well as commitments for additional spending on roads, bridges and other infrastructure, the AJC reported exclusively in August after reviewing hundreds of pages of previously unknown drafts of the agreement.
The newspaper found that McRae did not charge the county for his time during four months of negotiations. But McRae’s firm, Seyfarth Shaw, was written into a late version of the agreement as bond and project counsel on the Braves deal — legal representation worth millions.
Lee denied hiring McRae and said the attorney did not negotiate on the county’s behalf, that his role was limited to an informal adviser as the county was investigating the “feasibility” of the Braves moving to Cobb. Lee said he did not know that McRae had written his firm into the agreement for the additional legal work, or why the attorney would do so.
About a month later, the newspaper obtained an email, sent to McRae from a chamber staff member on Lee’s behalf, which says: “I am passing on to you the following provided by Chairman Tim Lee on behalf of Cobb County and its entities. The county confirms the attorney-client relationship between it and Seyfarth Shaw as its project counsel/bond counsel for” the Braves deal.
Lee refused to be interviewed for a story about the memo, instead issuing a statement that did not address most of the newspaper’s questions about McRae’s hiring.
Ethical Challenges
The AJC’s reporting on McRae led Tom Cheek, a west Cobb software salesman, to file an ethics complaint against Lee, alleging that the chairman improperly hired the attorney, was not responsive to open records requests and used private email accounts to skirt the state’s open records law.
It was the third ethics complaint filed against Lee in 2014, all related to the Braves deal. Each of the previous two had been dismissed after the board said they were legal issues that needed to be decided by a court.
The ethics board voted at a preliminary hearing on Cheek’s complaint to proceed to a full, trial-like hearing. But at the trial, the board dismissed the complaints related to open records, saying that was a legal matter that should be decided by the courts. Cheek then dropped the complaint related to McRae, saying he was satisfied with an apology Lee issued the previous week.
Other Agreements
The AJC also reviewed hundreds of pages of drafts of the seven finalized agreements with the Braves that cement the stadium deal. The drafts show the back-and-forth negotiations between the two sides and give insight into the public’s obligations in building, operating and funding the stadium.
The newspaper found that county officials unsuccessfully pushed for a minimum investment by the Braves in its private, mixed-use development and definite opening date for the mix of bars, restaurants, shops, housing and office space. The private development is important if the county hopes to recoup some of its investment in the stadium, because it will bring additional sales tax, property tax and jobs into the area.
While the Braves would not include the private development in the stadium agreements, team officials told the AJC that the county can rely on the development being finished because of the team has purchased land, paid for permits and hired a firm to plan the development.
The team last month released artist renderings of what the development might look like.
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