The deal to build a downtown minor league ballpark will likely expire April 15th. The Metro Council voted unanimously last night not to approve another extension for the Sounds and its development partner Struever Brothers who’ve been at odds for weeks.
After the vote, both sides blamed finances as the major stumbling block. In its latest proposal, Struever offered to build both the surrounding development and the stadium itself. Struever CFO John Kovacs says that’s because the Sounds don’t have experience in managing construction.
“That’s what we do for a living. We do it day in and day out. No disrespect to the Sounds, but they’re not real estate developers. And I think someone needed to take charge of the project and get it across the finish line.”
The opening had already been moved into 2009, which raised the cost from 43 to 47-million dollars. Sounds general manager Glenn Yaeger says Struever asked the team to pay for construction drawings and to be responsible for some cost overruns.
“You know the Sounds are not a company that’s in a position to spend 3-million dollars on a ball park that we could never build. Financially, we couldn’t handle that. They were trying to put us in a position where we would have spent money above and beyond their means and we were unable to do that until they could give us some assurances that they could close.”
The developer and Metro government’s outside counsel pointed fingers at the Sounds yesterday for not working harder toward a compromise. The city is expected to announce today whether the Sounds will be held in default of their deal with Metro.
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