The first of two approvals needed before Cobb County can borrow money for construction of SunTrust Park was given Wednesday by the Galleria Authority.
The Galleria’s board of directors, which oversees Cobb’s convention center, performing arts center and specialty shops, voted unanimously to approve issuance of $376 million in bonds — $368 million for stadium construction; the rest to cover borrowing costs.
The county will be responsible for annual payments of $22.4 million, or $1.6 million per year less than originally anticipated. The Galleria Authority is technically the entity issuing the bonds, but the debt is backed by Cobb County taxpayers.
Matt Nichols, bond attorney for the Galleria Authority, said the board had to approve the 4.4-percent interest rate associated with the bonds. Cobb County commissioners will vote on the deal next week.
“There are some people who think this is just normal, ordinary to have a 4 percent tax rate,” Nichols said. “It’s just incredible.”
Authority chairman Jerry Nix joked that it was “a case of the Good Lord lookin’ after drunks and fools.”
“Nobody could have predicted that this thing would come in the way that it has,” Nix said.
In other Galleria Authority action, the board approved a $69,000 consulting contract to have a hotel study performed in the next three months.
Board member Bob Voyles said the consultant will study the feasibility of the hotel and the impact one would have on the convention center business.
Voyles said the convention center’s on-site hotel, the Renaissance Waverly, has multi-year commitments that booked about 82 percent of its rooms. That makes attracting large conventions difficult, because conventioneers typically want a large number of rooms in an adjacent hotel so they don’t have to drive or walk long distances.
“It’s important to this convention center that we get that hotel,” Nix said. “We’ll not be able to continue to track larger conventions … regardless of how many other hotels are” in the surrounding area.
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