MADISON — In a three-hour meeting marked by confusion and frustration, the Madison City Council voted Friday to advance a more streamlined one-story design at Toyota Field.
A separate proposal to continue work on the ambitious four-story project failed to gain enough support.
In 2023, Major League Baseball issued mandates requiring improvements to existing ball parks and new builds.
Option one, “Existing Maintenance Facility Utilization,” was quickly discarded by the city as actual construction costs came in much higher than anticipated, close to the same expense for the one-story build.
Related story: Ballcorps releases fact sheet on proposed Toyota Field renovation
Option two, or the one-story build, is estimated to cost around $7.2 million. BallCorps, the owner of the Rocket City Trash Pandas, would not be contributing to the cost on the one-story build.
The four-story option is estimated to cost more than $20 million. BallCorps has agreed to pay the delta, or shortfall, between the bond payment and what taxes would generate to pay off the debt on the four-story option.
Council President John Seifert said the debt would not be paid by the residents of Madison but by the lodging tax.
“By definition, for the most part, by definition, people that help pay them from a lodging tax standpoint do not live here,” he said. “So when we look at how we are paying these things, it is from a lodging tax.”
The city’s financial advisor, Rush Rice, said his firm had access to BallCorps financial records and confirmed the risk factor was low for the one-story build and the four-story build.
“The likelihood that the city of Madison is going to wind up being on the hook for all this debt is very low,” Rice said. “And that would be the case regardless of what the future holds.”
Rice also told the council that while there is the potential for more revenue from the four-story option, the city of Madison would own the debt.
“You’re not paying it, but it’s you who owe it.” said Rice. “It’s not a whole lot of debt in the grand scheme of things relative to the city’s side of the city’s budget.”
Council Member Ranae Bartlett pushed for a backstop or security deposit from BallCorps before the city would take on more than $20 million in debt.
BallCorps lead investor Mark Holland said, “We’re not going to make distributions of profits to investors and not pay rent.” But he fell short of committing to signing a document.
“I need to understand exactly what the ask is like and see the language and document,” said Holland. “But yes, I have no problem committing to paying our bills.”
A motion was introduced by Seifert “to amend what we’re considering, this new resolution 2025-154-R that kills, stops, gets rid of option one, moves forward with option two.”
“Just to note, there’s no financial benefit with option one,” said Bartlett. “That’s what the cost estimate provided. And option 2 gets us to the Major League Baseball deadline faster than any other option.”
The motion passed unanimously.
Attention then shifted to a resolution which would have resumed design work on the four-story option. The resolution “continues the scope of services dated 29 October 2024 for the construction document through project closeout phases of the four-story building design.”
Despite a motion and second, the resolution was voted down, 5-2.
Frustrations boiled over and the rejection drew a strong response from Councilman Greg Shaw, who criticized the decision.
“This makes no sense to me,” he said. “I’ve been on council nine years and this is absolutely the most crazy. I do not understand the thought process behind this.
“We’ve had financial advisors tell us how to move forward. We can read numbers, there’s zero risk, and we’re dragging our feet on something. It absolutely blows my mind that as intelligent as everybody is on this council, do not look at these numbers and see that it absolutely is amazing to me, unbelievable, unbelievable, we’re not moving forward with that.”
“It is the best thing for our citizens, is the best thing for our own economy here in Madison. The numbers prove it over and over again. There’s not one person said do not do this. Not one person in a professional manner has said do not do this.”
Councilman Teddy Powell echoed Shaw’s statements.
“We’re basically saying that we’re better than our financial advisor and has advised us to do this. We are smarter than that guy,” he said. “So why do we even hire people? Why do we hire engineers? Are we smarter than that?”
Despite earlier agreements to revisit the four-story option in two weeks, the explosive end to the meeting leaves it unclear whether that meeting will take place.
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