The Metro Council approved an extension for the Nashville Sounds stadium deal last night. Developer Struever Brothers, Eccles & Rouse is building a residential and retail development as part of the 43-million dollar stadium deal. Struever Brothers requested more time to get the financing worked out for its side of the project.
Five council members voted against the extension. One of those was at-large Council Lady Carolyn Baldwin Tucker who says she still has concerns about the financing.
“I would hate to think that we would venture out into another project that would, might not be necessarily self-sustaining and cause this to have to be put on the backs of taxpayers.”
Struever Brothers development director Michael Hayes says the investors intend to bear the brunt of the financing, but he says they needed more time. He says no one wanted to buy the specialized tax credits being used for the development until the drawings and budgets were in hand. Hayes says the project is going to sell the type of tax credit, called tax increment financing or TIF, as a bond, rather than going through a traditional lender like a bank.
“The people that we would sell the TIF to in the bond marketplace want to know the project’s going to be complete. And until we were able to show them a budget and design, that says this can be built for this cost and here are the guarantees it’s going to happen, they didn’t want to buy the note.”
April 15th is the new closing date for the deal, but Hayes says he hopes it will be done before then.
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