A.G. Gancarski
The news media has raised questions lately about the Lenny Curry administration’s ambitious $90 million capital improvement plan for EverBank Field, which includes a covered practice facility and an amphitheater.
Shad Khan would pay $45 million as the private half of the public-private partnership and $45 million would be paid by the city, financed and paid down by tourist bed tax revenues.
Despite the enthusiastic support of at least a few Jacksonville City Council members, The Florida Times-Union raised concerns about the lack of a use of a “scorecard” to assess the project.
“I’m not trying to spin you,” Curry said this week. “We’re not putting taxpayer dollars into a private investor’s asset. It’s not their asset.”
At City Hall on Friday, FloridaPolitics.com spoke with a senior member of the Curry administration, who explained the administration position on a capital improvement project that just a few days ago didn’t seem like it would be especially controversial.
Describing it as a “quality of life” issue, the administration member strongly contended that the “scorecard” wouldn’t apply because it’s not a business recruitment project, but an investment, with private funds, into a community asset, one which would be an asset to the Sports Complex at large.
Because of the fact that the amphitheater would be an improvement for quality of life of residents, a strict profit/loss analysis is not the way the administration perceives this project, and Khan supplying half the capital is another consideration.
Many facilities, including the arena, operate in the red; however, said the source, the city obviously needs an arena.
Some, like Finance Chairman Bill Gulliford, have contended that the amphitheater will stem the tide of lost concert business to St. Augustine; still others have countered that the city already has facilities for concerts that are underutilized and underprogrammed.
An open question: based on bed tax revenues, how long will it take to pay off the current improvements when added to the scoreboard deal of the previous administration, which also was financed from a finite pool of bed tax money? And how will the current proposal affect plans for the Shipyards, which the administration has devoted $17.5 million in the current budget toward environmental remediation, with another $17.5 million slated for next year?
FloridaPolitics.com has contacted the Curry administration for answers to those questions, so expect an update when we get those answers.
