Lease Limits PawSox To Only 18 Million In Cost Overruns

For years, we have been worried about the costs skyrocketing and the revenues plummeting since the release of the first proforma.     Many people have responded by saying that us taxpayers need not be concerned  about overruns, since the baseball team will cover all of them.  

 

This week we noticed something we had never seen before.   Looking at the bottom    Exhibit F.

                                Remaining to $18 million cap:            $695,207

 

What is this???  

 

Now look at the lease and 

• Go to page 21 of the lease, section 4.5(b). It outlines who is responsible for cost overruns. The important sentence begins with "Notwithstanding ... exceeds $18,000,000, the parties will work cooperatively to find alternative funding sources." 

• This says to us that the City may have to renegotiate with the Team if cost overruns exceed $18,000,000. Exhibit F states the cost overruns are currently $17,304,793 (as of 1/8/21) so the likelihood of there being cost overruns over $18,000,000 are probably high.

Remember this stadium started out at $100,000,000.     City of Worcester then had to pay $20,600,000 in additional site acquisitions, when we got hit with the first $30,000,000 cost overrun.     

Now the stadium costs are at $157,000,000, an increase of $57,0000.    Many people think the PawSox have paid all the cost overrun costs other then the $20,600,000 in site acquisition.  Now we find out there is an $18,000,000 cap???   

Going Forward

There is an 18 million cap to the PawSox for cost overruns and there is only $695,207 in cost overruns remaining that is the responsibility of the team. 

Lets hope there are no more overruns!!!