The Falcons have ordered about $200 million worth of changes to the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium, half of it last month, according to a report prepared by a state agency.
The latest project status report by the Georgia World Congress Center Authority disclosed that the Falcons organization “has issued change orders” to general contractor Holder Hunt Russell Moody “in the cumulative amount of $199.5 (million) for various scope changes.”
The report, obtained Friday by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, said that with the latest changes the “total project cost is projected to be $1.5 (billion).”
The changes don’t affect the amount of taxpayer money in the project. Under terms of the stadium deal, the Falcons are responsible for construction cost overruns.
The GWCCA report, dated May 31, doesn’t provide details about the change orders, but shows that costs grew by $101 million last month.
In a similar status report April 30, the GWCCA said the Falcons’ cumulative changes totaled $98.5 million at that point and that the total project cost was “still” projected to be $1.4 billion.
The Falcons on Friday attributed the latest increases to issues associated with structural steel.
“As the complex steel structure of the roof and facade continue to come together, the added costs come from steel fabrication and as a result increases in the steel erection process,” a Falcons spokeswoman said in a statement.
The Falcons previously attributed the earlier increases to "elements of the concrete superstructure, steel, mechanical equipment, electrical systems and finish refinements."
More cost increases may be ahead. At a Clinton Global Initiative meeting this week, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and Penny McPhee, president of Falcons owner Arthur Blank’s family foundation, referred to the stadium as a $1.6 billion project. Video of their comments was shown on WXIA-TV.
The latest status report said the GWCCA “is awaiting final design peer reviews for (the stadium’s) exterior skin and mechanized roof” and that the construction schedule “continues to be paced by fabrication of the fixed-roof structural steel.”
The report doesn't address the completion date, which Blank said earlier this year would be pushed back three months to June 1, 2017. That remains the targeted completion date, a Falcons spokeswoman said Friday.
The taxpayer contribution toward the stadium’s construction cost is $200 million from bonds backed by Atlanta hotel-motel tax revenue, with the remainder coming from the Falcons, the NFL and personal seat license sales. But hundreds of millions in additional hotel-motel tax dollars are expected to ultimately go toward costs of operating and maintaining the stadium.
The exact amount depends on tax collections over the next three decades, during which 39.3 percent of a 7-cents-per-dollar tax on Atlanta hotel rooms will go to the stadium each year — the same percentage that currently goes to the Georgia Dome.
After annual debt service for principal and interest on the Mercedes-Benz Stadium bonds — about $15 million per year — is paid from the stadium’s share of the tax, the remainder generated by the 39.3-percent share will go toward maintenance, operations and capital improvements. The hotel-motel tax brought in $23.89 million for the Georgia Dome in fiscal 2015.
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