The Winston-Salem City Council unanimously approved a deal to secure financing for an additional $15.7 million to complete construction on the downtown ballpark during a special meeting at City Hall on Wednesday. The deal brings the city’s total participation to nearly $28 million to construct a new home for the Winston-Salem Dash, the Chicago White Sox A minor league squad.
The council voted 8-0 to accept the proposal put forth by Dash owner Billy Prim after a public hearing. The hearing began Monday night but due to the high number of citizens who signed up to speak, the council agreed to continue the meeting until Wednesday. City Manager Lee Garrity told the council that public concerns expressed via e-mails, phone calls and during the public hearing related to transparency and oversight of the city’s investment had led to several revisions of the deal.
Garrity said Prim and his partners had agreed to increase the debt service reserve for the city’s loan to $1 million. Also, the city increased the interest rate charged to Prim to 5.5 percent; required the developer to pay 25 percent of net revenues from an office building to be constructed on the ballpark property; and stipulated that city funds could only be used for land payments and hard costs related to construction. The revised deal strictly prohibits city funds from flowing directly to Prim or any of his partners, past or present.
The revised deal also stipulates the city must receive title to the land set aside for a parking lot, and that arrangement supersedes a lien on the property by Regions Bank. The new deal requires public disclosure monitoring of how the city’s money is being spent and the formation of a citizen oversight committee. All payments of city funds must be approved by the citizen oversight committee and must go through a lending institution. The developer must make regular reports and those reports must be made public record. In addition, the developer must provide the completed stadium free of charge for two public events a year; Prim and his partners must commit to using local and minority contractors and vendors and they must recognize the historic Watkins Street neighborhood and Winston-Salem baseball legend Ernie Shore with displays and plaques. Also, if Prim sells or moves the team, he will be considered in default on the city’s secured loan, Garrity said.
In return for its investment, the city gets the title to the land immediately and will own the stadium at the end of the loan’s 25-year term. The agreement also stipulates that Prim secure a separate banking consortium loan of $15 million to go toward total construction costs. That loan would be secured through stadium revenues and personal guarantees of Prim and his investors.
Councilman Robert Clark said the choice for the council was simple: do nothing or “double down.” Clark apologized for the lack of transparency during the negotiation process with Prim and his partners but expressed optimism that the citizen oversight committee could bring enhanced accountability to the process. —KTB
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