Weston Wamp at Taxpayer Town Hall
photo by Hannah Campbell
County Mayor Weston Wamp, at a "Taxpayer Town Hall" meeting Thursday night at Calvary Chapel church on South Broad Street, laid out concerns not only with the 50 percent jump in the new Lookouts stadium’s cost, but with the basic terms of the deal between the county and the developer.
“We’re not here to kill the stadium,” County Mayor Wamp said. “We think there is a much better deal to be had for taxpayers. Taxpayers at this juncture have all the leverage.”
This month the estimated cost of the stadium jumped to $139 million, up from $79.5 million in August 2022 when the County Commission approved the South Broad Economic Impact Plan, he said.
County Mayor Wamp said some of the rise is surely due to inflation, but not all.
“The stadium looks a lot cooler than it did six or seven months ago,” he said. He said he had received the latest design sketches Thursday that showed new stories and bars.
After comments from the crowd, County Mayor Wamp agreed that a county representative would check basic stadium requirements with Major League Baseball directly.
He said the deal being offered to Hamilton County is not as fair as deals the developer, New City Properties, made with Columbia, S.C., and Fort Wayne, Ind., cities offered as comparable scenarios for economic impact.
Up front, the developer has offered Chattanooga a $40 million loan with a floating interest rate over the life of the TIF, amounting to $109 million in future property taxes, he said. Columbia and Fort Wayne each received about 20 percent down in cash.
“There’s not a dollar, still, in the equity,” County Mayor Wamp said. “And we ought to call their bluff.”
Former County Commissioner Tim Boyd, who had voted against the measure in 2022, said the county should insist on revenue from naming rights, parking and skybox use. Give the developer revenue from ticket sales, concessions and event rentals, he said.
“I’m not here to kill the deal,” Mr. Boyd said. “I just want the best deal.”
Mr. Boyd criticized the process’s lack of transparency in the early days. He said he showed up for a “legal meeting” and got the stadium presentation.
“To me that was a violation of the Sunshine Law,” he said. He told the crowd that approval had been rushed through before former Mayor Jim Coppinger’s term expired.
Helen Burns Sharp, founder of Accountability for Taxpayer Money, called on county commissioners to demand a draft of the development agreement before a vote. The agreement would lay out penalties for the developer and protections for the county if the stadium does not generate the money it predicts, if the tax increment does not cover the loan payments, or if the project falls through.
Ms. Sharp also called on commissioners to check the status of a community benefits agreement specified in the development agreement, similar to the Chattanooga Housing Authority’s One Westside plan in collaboration with CALEB, or Chattanoogans in Action for Love, Equality and Benevolence, and other community organizations.
She said the best TIFs include a community benefits agreement, because TIFs were designed to revive blighted areas, which the U.S. Pipe and Wheland site surely is, she said.
“TIFs can be a good financing tool,” she said. “I’ve always supported the idea of a TIF at this site.”
But this TIF encompasses 330 acres of surrounding neighborhood, an area County Mayor Wamp says is growing anyway. Roping it in to the TIF directs that property tax growth to pay for the stadium and withholds it from the county’s general fund for services.
“They knew this is a really hot part of town,” he said.
County Mayor Wamp predicts two percent growth in the property tax base next year, or $4 million in new revenue. By law this tax base, not the tax increment in the new district, pays for all the services the county offers, he said. If growth around the county requires services that exceed this budget, “a tax increase could happen,” he said.
“I’m not going to give my vote away,” said Commissioner Joe Graham. “We’ve still got some negotiating to do.”
County Mayor Wamp said that developers, with use of a marketing firm, have painted an unrealistic picture of the project’s economic impact. The Lookouts generated $365,000 in sales tax revenue in 2023, he said, and now developers project they’ll generate $889,000 in annual sales tax revenue, or $81 million over the 30-year life of the TIF. He said that means the TIF district would have to hit $8 billion in retail sales over those 30 years.