Monday, February 11, 2013
News City Council to hear details about proposed stadium on Wednesday
Posted by Max Blau @maxblau on Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 12:38 PM
- Joeff Davis/CL File
- Gov. Deal can only hope this works out...
On Wednesday at 1 p.m., the Atlanta City Council Finance and Executive Committee will be briefed on the proposed stadium deal. Officials from the Georgia World Congress Center Authority, the Falcons, Invest Atlanta, and Mayor Kasim Reed's office are expected to attend the meeting.
According to a statement this morning, the City Council expects that Atlanta "may be asked to approve $200 million of Hotel/Motel tax revenue to fund a new stadium with $800 [million] in funding coming from Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank."
An Atlanta-backed deal would have to be approved by the City Council. Its members, however, haven't officially heard details regarding the city's involvement, despite one-on-one sitdown with the mayor and all the talk about possible plans.
Reed said last Friday that all the information is forthcoming and that the city can expect "a big public conversation" to take place in the near future.
"You're going to get more transparency," Reed told the AJC. "We're going to give the public every piece of data that we can possibly give them. Everything is going to be known. Questions are going to be answered in public and on television."
The City has become increasingly involved over the past month after Gov. Nathan Deal decided to avoid a contentious Gold Dome fight and opted to find an alternative plan to make the new stadium a reality. Despite the public's opposition to the estimated $1 billion project, Reed says it makes sense, given that the current stadium may require up to $350 million in renovations.
"I read the polls and I understand that folks are concerned," Reed told CL a couple of weeks ago regarding the city's potential involvement. "But there are times when you're leading the city that you have to make a 10-, 20-, 30-year decision. I don't enjoy pain. I don't enjoy hearing folks saying some of the things they're saying. But there must be a genuine need to get this done."
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