Unfortunately we have just learned that they want another $10 million for the ball park.
We started at “not to exceed” $50 million. There was even a clause in the contract that gave the construction manager part of the savings if the project came in under $50 million. Nice deception there.
The city increased that amount to $64 million a few months later. Some members of city council threw fits and made threats about firing people if the project was not controlled.
The city handled the bond sales poorly and ended up costing us an additional $17 million in financing costs that are not included in the numbers above. Council demurred.
Now the sports group says it will take another $10 million, hopefully to finish the project. They say they will need a few other things too, like a contractual commitment to use quality of life bond money to build things that they feel are necessary around the park.
The sports group says that they are willing to repay the city the $10 million but they will need:
Any money they pay will have to be allocated to the portions of the stadium that provide the best tax advantage to the sports group.
The right “to modify the Ballpark Schedule, Project Plans and Ballpark Budget”. In other words, control of the project. That might actually be a good thing.
Clarify “that certain ancillary City improvements that complement the Ballpark are being paid for with City funding sources other than the Ballpark financing”. The city’s plan has been to spend quality of life bond money to make the neighborhood better facilitate the ball park. The city also has been spending money on improving the utilities. Up until now those costs have been pretty much hidden. Now the sports group wants a commitment.
The right to close Missouri street during any event that they have at the ball park.
The city will need to “exchange the City’s right to use a Ballpark suite with an equivalent number of tickets that include a reasonable combination of Ballpark party suites and other preferred seating…” We did not know until now that the city negotiated the right to use a suite at the ball park into the original agreement. I don’t expect an invitation as I suspect that the suite will be used for the privileged overseers of the city.
Fasten your seat belts
More bad news will be coming in the next few months. We still don’t know:
What the design will look like
The dimensions of the field
When it will be finished
How much more it will cost to complete it
How much money will be spent on projects near the stadium
Who knew what/when about this mess
What action bond holders may take since they were not told the truth. Lying to the citizens does not bring the same legal problems as lying to the bond buyers.
Avoidable
These cost over-runs are avoidable. We could have had a $50 million stadium. The architects were hired to design a stadium that could be built for $50 million dollars. The extra $24 million is for things that the city and the sports group think will make the stadium better. Better in this case means increase their revenue stream.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Mountainstar NOW wants control? They’ve been in control all along. It’s disingenuous and dishonest for them to imply that these budgetary problems would not have arisen under their control. Mountainstar actually drove the original cost estimating process that generated the presumably palatable numbers sold to the public.
Go to the archive of city council meeting videos: http://www.elpasotexas.gov/muni_clerk/citycouncil_archive.asp and watch the video of the May 28th meeting when the %$#! hit the fan over the first overage. Watch starting at about 1:54:00 on the video player time clock.
When asked by councilman Noe, city engineer Alan Shubert claimed he didn’t even know who put together the original construction cost estimates. Joyce Wilson spoke up and said they were developed by Populous (the architectural firm)and Turner Construction. When pressed on that point by Noe, she specifically states that Turner and Populous were brought to the table by Mountainstar.
So here is where it gets even more interesting. Did Jordan/Hunt not do their own numbers before signing a manager-at-risk contract? Did they really just take at face value the numbers generated by Turner Construction, who was a competitor in the bid process?
If Turner and Populous thought, based on their vast experience, that the ballpark could be built for $50 million, is it now Mountainstar and Jordan/Hunt who are jointly driving up the cost? We do know that Mountainstar is asking for more revenue-generating amenities, but it’s also logical that if Jordan/Hunt is the construction manager at risk, they need the overall budget to go up in order for there to be room for Jordan/Hunt to make money.
You could fill a book with all the things that are wrong about this deal and the continual renegotiation of terms that were already unbelievably favorable to Mountainstar. It’s dishonest for them to not step up and take at least partial responsibility for the budgeting “errors” which are looking less like “errors” all the time.
Are we supposed to believe that not one, but two billionaires simply stood by and allowed city management to bungle this process? No way, Something tells me this bait-and-switch is exactly the way they wanted the process to unfold.
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This has been a bait-and-switch operation from the get go. Hunt’s strategy was to get the city pregnant with the stadium commitment and then up the ante. So each time MS comes back for more, the Horde thinks, “Well we’re already in this so deep we need to put even more money it to save what we have in it already.”
We pay City staff to represent our interests but it seems all they can do is to keep playing in Woody’s court.
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I can’t believe Josh Hunt wants to blame all of this week’s ballpark fireworks on a “misunderstanding” and on the media. Read his demand letter at the link below and then draw your own conclusion:
Click to access MountainStar_gm.pdf
The concessions and changes in terms he insists on in the letter are things intended to increase Mountainstar’s revenue and push some of their operating costs onto the city as a quid pro quo for them covering some of the overages they now want to impose.
I was shocked that all the Mountainstar principals didn’t show up for Monday’s press conference. Yeh, right.
The El Paso Times and the rest of the local media should think long and hard about how quickly Hunt and Mountainstar are willing to throw them under the bus when he’s not able to manipulate and control them.
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