HARTFORD — A $10.4 million funding gap for the city’s new minor league baseball stadium would be plugged with additional money from the developer, the Hartford Yard Goats and the city in an agreement that could have the ballpark ready for a home opener May 31.
The details were announced Wednesday by Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin.
“I came into office 20 days ago and we inherited a mess here, and we worked very quickly to bring all parties to the table and find a resolution that would get this back on track and protect the taxpayers,” Bronin said.
The Yard Goats had already announced that the first 17 home games at Dunkin’ Donuts Park would be played elsewhere. The new agreement would add an additional 11, meaning the team would lose 40 percent of its originally scheduled home games. The first 52 games would be on the road.
Under the agreement, the developer, Centerplan Cos. affiliate DoNo Hartford LLC, would give up $2.3 million in fees. In addition, it would make additional annual tax payments of $225,000 on the entire Downtown North development, a mixed-use project that includes the stadium. The higher tax payments would extend over 25 years.
The Yard Goats would contribute $2 million and give up $500,000 that the city would have paid for designated team parking.
The city would initially shoulder $5.5 million from bonds issued by the Hartford Stadium Authority. But the additional tax payments from DoNo Hartford would reduce the city’s share of the costs to about $3.5 million. City council approval is still required because it had signed off on the original stadium development agreements.
Bronin said previously that he opposed sinking any more city money into the stadium construction.
“Nobody wanted to put additional taxpayer funding into this deal, but we have to play the hand that we were dealt,” Bronin said. “Given the situation that we’re in, I think it was our responsibility to protect both the short- and long-term interest of the taxpayers and the best way to do that is to get this project back on track and to limit taxpayer exposure.”
The city’s portion of the agreement will be sent to the city council Monday. Before it comes up for a vote, a public hearing — not yet scheduled — will be held. In the meantime, Bronin will conduct a town hall-style meeting Monday at 5 p.m. at the Hartford Public Library on Main Street at which residents can weigh in on the deal.
City Council President Thomas “TJ” Clarke II said Wednesday, “I’m happy that there has been a resolution to this situation, that the mayor along with the city treasurer and the chief operating officer worked hard to come up with a plan to get this project going again.”
The agreement announced Wednesday stipulates that the team will pay for a Dunkin’ Donuts cup on the scoreboard that will emit steam every time the Yard Goats hit a home run.
At a press conference Wednesday afternoon at the team’s merchandise store on Trumbull Street, team owner Josh Solomon said that it was always the team’s intention to pay for the cup and that he expected it to be ready for the May 31 home opener.
Solomon told the stadium authority earlier this month that he wasn’t willing to help cover the cost overruns. He was asked Wednesday why his position had changed.
“We feel incredibly committed to the city and we’re going to do whatever we can to get into the ballpark as quickly as we can,” he said. “Although it wasn’t our making, we want to be part of the solution.”
The agreement calls for a “substantial completion date” of May 17, giving the team enough time to ensure the ballpark is ready for its first game. Bronin also said there will be no further changes to the design of the 6,000-seat ballpark, just north of downtown.
A lot is now riding on the new, May 17 deadline. Under the agreement, if the date is not met, the city can replace Centerplan as the contractor and start collecting damages of $50,000 for the first day and $15,000 a day thereafter, according to the agreement.
Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin announced a funding package that will get the Dunkin’ Donuts Stadium project back on track at Hartford City Hall on Wednesday.
The Yard Goats would not have to honor its contribution of $2 million or pay $500,000 in rent for the year if the deadline is not met. The team also waives any late opening charges, which could be as much as $500,000 if it did not play in Hartford at all in 2016, with the substantial completion date being moved from March 11 to May 17.
Asked if he felt confident that the new deadline would be met, Solomon said, “I’m as confident as I can be without me using a spade and a shovel myself.”
DoNo Hartford has also agreed to open an office in Hartford’s “Promise Zone” — a swath of land in the city’s North End — to help inform residents on how they can take a role in the Downtown North project.
Abdul-Shahid Muhammad Ansari, president of the Greater Hartford Chapter of the NAACP, said the office will help ensure that the community has access to jobs “without getting the runaround at city hall.”
Bronin said a key priority in the negotiations over the funding gap was to put together a deal that preserved a working relationship with both the team and the developer. The larger, $300 million Downtown North neighborhood project is being developed by Centerplan and includes plans for apartments, shops, restaurants and a grocery store.
“We are tied as partners to both the team and to the developer, and we are tied as partners to the developer beyond this ballpark, to development that has to proceed and has to succeed in order for us to get anywhere near the revenue that was projected to support the original bonding on the stadium,” Bronin said.
Cost overruns on the $56 million ballpark, which began construction in February 2015, first surfaced as a concern in September. The funding troubles came to a head in mid-December when DoNo Hartford told the stadium authority, which is charged with overseeing the project, that there was a $10 million shortfall to complete Dunkin’ Donuts Park and that construction might not be completed until late spring, well beyond the scheduled April 7 home opener.
The issue heated up earlier this month when Centerplan and DoNo officials testified before the stadium authority and claimed that the city was responsible for the cost overruns and the expected delays because it didn’t relinquish design controls — as called for in the development services agreement — early enough to address large overruns. The developer said the stadium’s final design was also far more expensive than the one it had expected to build.
The overruns — and who was responsible for them — erupted into a series of nasty public volleys in the past month from the developer, the Yard Goats’ owner and the chairman of the stadium authority.
None of that tension was evident, at least publicly, on Wednesday after Bronin’s announcement at city hall.
“What we had to do is ensure the stadium got completed this year and that baseball got played this year,” I. Charles Mathews, the authority’s chairman, said. “We had to stop bickering and stop fighting and figure out how we could move forward, and I think we did in the end. It was important to move away from the finger pointing.”
Mathews maintained the city was never made aware of massive cost overruns beyond the “value engineering” or cost-cutting measures announced in September, which included removing a roof from the upper deck in right field for a savings of about $300,000.
Asked whether he had any regrets about the oversight of the project, Mathews replied: “I don’t think it matters now. I’m not going there. In my mind now, it’s done, there’s no need to reflect backwards.”
Robert A. Landino, Centerplan’s chief executive, had argued that the city and the Yard Goats’ owner were made aware of the extra costs as early as April. Landino said Wednesday, “We are happy to be finishing the ballpark and working with Mayor Bronin on a collaborative basis.”
Landino said work has continued uninterrupted since the funding issues came to light. Centerplan is confident that it will meet the new completion deadline, he said.
Bronin said he does not see merit in trying to determine where the blame lies for the overruns. Instead, he said, he’ll work to make sure such problems don’t happen again.
“I see the most value in trying to make sure that we are as careful and as successful as possible going forward,” Bronin said. ” I intend for there to be changes made across the board in how things get done.”
Bronin added that he expected the International Facilities Group of Chicago, the city’s construction monitor; the city’s department of development services; and the stadium authority be more “fully engaged” in the project.
Clarke said, “there is blame to go around,” but he declined to comment when asked about whether the council might investigate who was at fault for the delays and cost overruns.
“I would like answers,” Clarke said, “but we have to be careful about opening a litigation process.”
Hyacinth Yennie, a city resident who has been a vocal critic of the project, said Wednesday that news of the city’s contributing more money for the stadium has reopened old wounds.
“It’s totally unfair for us as residents to foot the bill for something we didn’t OK,” she said. “It is totally wrong. I’m not just speaking on my behalf, I’m speaking for other residents that I hear from every day. Why should we have to pay for something we did not ask for?
Yennie added that she held former Mayor Pedro Segarra’s administration, which brokered the deal in private after 18 months of negotiations, responsible for the stadium debacle.
“We are in between a rock and a hard place here. The new mayor is stuck with something that none of us wanted. … We are very, very disappointed that we were put in a situation like this and I’m hoping it’s lesson learned with our leadership that we have in place right now.”
Joe McEacharn, president of the Eastern League of Professional Baseball, which handles scheduling for league games, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
