It's a pretty exciting day for us here around the American Victory. Just last week, our governor signed the bill designated the Victory Ship as a state flagship, and we're really excited about that and proud to be a part of that. The county has been an incredible asset to the ship. They've really supported us, you know, both financially with some grants that we've been able to use to preserve the ship. We're actually standing on newly refurbished decks right now that the county allowed us to perform this task. You see a lot of folks come here. You'll see the smiles of the grandkids walking with their grandfathers, and you'll see some tears in some eyes sometimes, and they just embrace the chance to appreciate what they've been through and what they did for the country. We're at Upper Tampa Bay Conservation Park. It is a 600-acre conservation park, kind of in the northwest corner of Hillsborough County. We are releasing some bobcats today. Owls Nest Rescue has worked with us several times releasing animals, not just at Upper Tampa Bay Conservation Park, but at many of our parks and nature preserves. And they pick them because they have suitable habitat, they have large spaces. This park in particular is about 600 acres, and only a small portion of that is actually used for human recreation. The rest is just kind of wide. For bobcats, you're looking at a year that you have to get them to where they need to be to be back in the wild. We've had to make sure that they know how to hunt native things. I've done this 40-some years, so I know if they get to a point that I know they're ready. You get anxious about it, and then you're almost at peace that they're going to be in a really good place, so they're going to figure it out. Most people to the untrained eye are going to sit here and say that this owner starved for dogs. We're going to head up to that dog hall right now. We'll go out, we'll assess the situation. I'm looking at these dogs, I'm like garbage. I mean, that's just like, did you see those bags through there? She was very upset about losing all of her cats. She called me up a few times in tears. I need my photos. I need to be able to paint this picture for the judge so that he sees what I see. April 16, 2026, welcome to the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners Tampa Bay Rays workshop. Before I pass things over to the county administrator for opening remarks, a couple of comments. You'll see that the workshop is scheduled from 1.30 to 3 today. Commissioner Cohen has a flight to take shortly after that. Commissioner Miller has childcare duties and I have to leave shortly after that as well. So I'm going to ask speakers to be mindful of the time so we leave plenty of time for board questions and comments. Secondly, there are three primary goals of today's meeting. Provide an update in status of negotiations to receive board input and direction and to provide transparency to the public. We will not negotiate in public. With that, Bonnie, if you'd like to make some open remarks. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and welcome everybody. And today, as you mentioned, we're convening today's workshop to provide an update on the ongoing discussions regarding the opportunity for the Tampa Bay Rays to relocate to Hillsborough County. The proposal under consideration includes approximately 31,000-seat ballpark and approximately 7.6 million square feet of surrounding development on the Hillsborough College site. This workshop is intended to inform the board and outline where things stand. We'll also highlight the potential benefits, the challenges, and the uncertainties inherent in a project at this stage. You'll hear today from AECOM, the independent firm engaged to analyze the economic impact of this proposed development. Their analysis indicates the project could generate as much as $63 billion in direct economic impact over a 30-year period, based on the assumptions in their model, which you'll hear more about today. An opportunity of this magnitude is rare. It is potentially significant and warrants this board's thoughtful consideration and careful evaluation. Additionally, the state's participation through land contributions and infrastructure support is notable and further underscores the scale of this opportunity and its potential impact on our community. At the same time, I want to be very clear about where we are in the process. While we have been engaged in discussions with the RAISE organization for several months, we do not yet have an agreement that is ready to bring before this board. We recently received a draft memorandum of understanding for consideration from the team. This MOU has not been agreed upon by county staff and several significant issues remain unresolved. Some of those issues will be discussed during today's workshop. The financial request from the team is substantial, over a billion dollars, and would exceed any comparable request for a professional sports facility by a local government that we are aware of. That reality requires careful scrutiny and disciplined evaluation. You'll also hear today from County Attorney Mandel regarding the permissible use of the community investment tax for a project of this nature. And I also want to take a moment to address some questions that have arisen regarding how these funds were anticipated to be used. There were several categories that we outlined in 2024. There were several categories that include transportation and public works, public safety, public facilities, and public utilities. We'll focus on the public facilities category because other than contingency, that is the one category we are considering utilizing. Within public facilities, there's a subcategory entitled Community Facilities, and that subcategory was funded at $545 million. Within that category, several types of projects were identified as eligible, including Raymond James Stadium, Amelie Arena at the time, now Benchmark International Arena, Steinbrenner Field Tournament Sports Facilities, a Pet Resources Shelter, and Community Facilities Other. However, it's important to note that only the total funding amount for this category was approved. Eligibility within a category does not constitute a determination of priority or appropriateness for funding. No specific allocations were designated for any individual project or entity. While internal estimates were developed at the time, those figures were preliminary, not part of any formal approval, and were never promised or guaranteed to any group. These are taxpayer dollars, and only this board has the authority to allocate them through formal action. That action has not occurred. It is also worth noting that since the CIT's approval in 2024, the board has made significant additional investments in several of these community assets without the need to rely on these CIT funds, including most recently $18 million for Steinbrenner Field and $250 million for Benchmark International Arena. This was done because we recognize the strong partnerships we have with these teams, including the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. We also recognize that these are county-owned facilities and that they allow for a multitude of events to be held, which provide tremendous impact to our community. That continued support is warranted. You will also hear from staff today regarding the financial structure being requested by the Rays. One key issue is the request for substantial upfront funding during the construction period. This creates challenges in identifying viable and responsible revenue sources. The financing strategies that will be presented today are just that. They are options. They are not recommendations, and they require further analysis and vetting. Importantly, the team also has not agreed to the financing concepts being presented today, nor to several of the county's core requirements. Those discussions are ongoing, and no final terms have been reached. Finally, you'll hear more today about the proposed timeline and potential next steps. But let me be clear, a project of this scale and importance demands thoughtful, deliberate consideration. We will not bring forward an agreement for board consideration before it is fully developed and thoroughly evaluated. There is still substantial work to be done and many questions that must be answered. At the same time, we recognize the opportunities of this scale are rare, and if structured responsibly, this one could have a transformational impact on our community. And we look forward to today's discussion and to continuing to work with the board as this process moves forward. And finally, I would like to recognize many people who have been part of this process. First Deputy County Administrator Greg Horridale, Chief Financial Administrator Tom Fessler, County Attorney Julia Mandel, and Sam Hamilton, also from the County Attorney's Office, together with Eric Hart from the Tampa Sports Authority. And this team, together with City staff, our financial consultants, and legal counsel, have been and will continue to be instrumental in this analysis. And I want to publicly express my appreciation for their diligence and thoughtful consideration on this important project. Thank you. And so, with that, Mr. Chair, we can turn it over to AECOM, to Dylan Gilman, who is here in person. And we also have a representative from AECOM available online of Chris Brewer. Good afternoon, sir. Thank you, everybody. My name is Dylan Gilman. I'm a senior analyst with AECOM Advisory out of Chicago. I'm here today to present to you a summary of our findings in terms of the potential development and revenue estimates generated by the Tampa Bay Rays Stadium District. Before I begin, I do want to apologize for the last-minute change in our report that came out to you all, I believe, just yesterday. I do have some slides prepared if there are questions about the changes specifically. But, ultimately, we want to go forth with transparency. So, starting off, to give an overview of the site, the district is located on the Hillsborough College-Dale Mabry Campus, between Raymond James Stadium and the Tampa International Airport. It is also located within the Drew Park CRA, Community Redevelopment Area, which, again, is part of the fiscal analysis that we have prepared for you all. Now, part of the importance of this slide is that we actually do not have a more detailed district map than the one that you are seeing. We are basically going off of a limited set of assumptions from the team in order to put together this analysis, and, ultimately, why an independent analysis was requested by our client, the sports authority. Sure. The district is broken into three different categories in terms of the analysis. We have the stadium itself, which, again, the program for the stadium was given to us by the Rays. The ancillary development is mixed-use development that we have estimated based on a supportable development analysis of historical real estate deliveries over the last ten years. And then other uses, again, are a set of essentially planned concepts that have been given to us by the Rays in order to basically slot into the program as part of the development. Now, the stadium, again, as I mentioned, we have been given the program. However, we did, through a benchmarking and other data analysis, put together estimates of the revenues and, ultimately, the economic and fiscal impacts that would be generated. And we have done the same for the other two components in terms of estimating potential taxable streams of revenue for the county and other units of government. I will mention that for the other uses that, again, we were told to assume by the team that our scope of work does not include a full market and feasibility analysis on each of those concepts. However, we have conducted, again, benchmarking exercises and revenue estimates to understand what the assessed value of those components of the project may be and also the taxable streams of income they may produce. So going right into the economic and fiscal impacts, again, this is kind of the culmination of all of the work that I was just showing you. Over a 30-year period that begins in 2029, which is the year that we are assuming that the stadium and, essentially, the first tranche of development will be delivered through the next 30 years ending in 2058. Now, the on-site impacts have already been mentioned. That is essentially a buildup of the various revenue estimates that we have created for each of the individual concepts in the program. And that is where you see in the direct on-site the output, the $63 billion over 30 years there. That is the buildup of all of the market research that we have done. From there, we have used an input-output model to get a sense, and this is, again, this is across the county. We are using county-level multipliers, again, over 30 years. We generate approximately 20 billion of wage earnings on-site and an annual average of 7,400 jobs. Layering in indirect off-site impacts generally through the supply chain would add additional impacts in output, earnings, and jobs, as you can see here, supporting approximately 75 billion in output, 25 billion in earnings, and just less than 10,000 jobs on an annual basis. Again, in the beginning of the project, those numbers on an annual basis will be much lower and will ramp up over time as the development matures. That economic impact ultimately will generate some taxable revenue streams, and over the same 30-year period, gross collections, and these collections include tax rates such as the Tampa City and the County Operating Fund millages for ad valorem real estate taxes. We have also included state and county sales taxes, the tourism development tax on hotel room receipts, and lastly, the proposed admissions surcharge on ticket sales, which would just apply within the district itself. Now, in total, over 30 years, we are estimating that would sum to nearly $2.8 billion, and about 60% of that fiscal impact would actually be coming from sources outside of the stadium. So while the stadium is a district anchor and a critical component of the project, ultimately the majority of the fiscal benefits will be realized outside of that building. And I also do want to make clear that these fiscal impacts are only based on direct on-site activities. None of the indirect impacts are included in these fiscal estimates. So certainly if additional development were to happen within the CRA or beyond, those are not counted here. Also, I want to mention in terms of ad valorem taxes that there are three components of the project that are not considered to be taxable, and that is the stadium, the Hillsborough College campus, and also three parking garages that were proposed as part of a phase one parking plan in the Kimley-Horn analysis that was published back in December. So now we get into a distinction of gross versus net collections. So again, the gross collections are each of those taxes that I mentioned. The net collections are those that could potentially be used for project funding. So there are portions that, you know, each of the tax rates that are ultimately already committed to other projects or funds, but ultimately, based on our analysis, about 50 percent of that $2.8 billion gross collections, about half of it could be made available for project funding. I will also give a caveat that our report in no way recommends or is meant to support specific financing options. This is a means of estimating potential flows for the various taxes that are currently existent, and also some additional that which you'll see here on the next slide. In terms of the $1.4 billion that could be collected over 30 years, the county stands to collect over $900 million or two-thirds of that number, while the city would collect the remaining 33 percent or approximately $480 million. So as I mentioned, we were asked to estimate what we're calling speculative additional sources of funding could generate, if implemented across the district over the 30-year period. And the two that we assessed were a community development district, which, as you can see at the bottom of the slide, is a 2 percent fee applied to food and beverage retail and parking sales within the district. However, this would require city application and approval to be implemented, and ultimately that is estimated to potentially produce over $200 million over the 30-year period. Now, similarly, the special assessment is a 1 percent fee that would be applied to tickets in addition to food and beverage retail and parking, again, just within the district. However, that would require state legislation to be implemented. So these are not assumed, you know, either or both of them are not assumed to be implemented, but again, it was an exploratory exercise to see what could potentially be generated if funding gaps exist after considering the confirmed available sources. So now I'll go into just a high-level summary of some of the analysis that we did that underpins the economic and fiscal impacts that I just presented. Starting with the raised stadium, essentially what we, the analysis that we conducted is a benchmarking analysis of comparable stadiums, also looking at ticket pricing across the league, understanding the types of events beyond the raised regular season that may be hosted in the stadium, the level of attendance for each type of event, and ultimately with outreach to industry service vendors, getting an understanding of food and beverage, and merchandise spending on a per attendee basis for, again, each of the event types that are presented here. We also, we also did an assessment of the local market, including Tropicana Field, Raymond James Stadium, and other event types in order to build up an assumption for parking. Getting into the ancillary and other uses, I have just a few more slides. So the 30-year development estimates, as I mentioned at the beginning, is essentially an extrapolation of a 10-year historical development trend that was identified through market research. Looking over a 30-year period, that trend translates to approximately 115 million square feet that could be absorbed within the entire city of Tampa. And the district estimates are essentially taking from the citywide pipeline in order to establish the, as you see here, the 5.9 million of ancillary development. Again, that's the market-driven piece of our analysis. So that represents just 5 percent of the 115 million. During our process, there were concerns raised regarding other major projects that are either underway or proposed within the city. And we believe that with the prominence of these projects being mostly within the, what we're calling the first phase or the first decade of our 30-year analysis period, we believe that there is sufficient room in the pipeline for the stadium district to be built out simultaneously. And that's in the proposed projects in the major pipeline are mentioned there at the bottom, including Water Street, Gas Works, Ybor Harbor, and a few others. And again, even if we're just looking at the first phase of development, the district still remains at about 5 percent of that 10-year pipeline from the city. Adding in the other uses, and again, these are uses that we were told to assume that will be part of the program. You'll see there, essentially in the middle of this table, a significant amount of office, but also what we're calling revenue-generating concepts of a lifestyle fitness and recreation center, an immersive sports entertainment venue. It's not just sports, it's just visual arts in general, and also live entertainment venue for live concerts. I will reiterate that this was not a, this is not a market and feasibility study, and the study was conducted prior to recent venue announcements in the local market. So that brings us to the 7.6 million square feet that was mentioned at the beginning of this meeting. And finally, we, we estimated assessed values based on, again, market research for the various concepts, again, with limited information on exactly what concepts will be built, but based on our estimates of development in the ancillary development category and the other uses that were built into our project or built into the project, we estimate about 730 million in assessed value in year one. Now, again, that does not include the stadium. That's everything outside of the stadium. The majority of that value will be represented by the other uses. However, by the end of phase one being built out, the ratio will switch to ancillary development being the majority, and that, that majority will be maintained and actually expanded out through the 30th year of our analysis, bringing assessed values. Obviously, these are inflated to about $4.9 billion. That concludes my executive summary. I believe we'll open it up for, for questions regarding this presentation and also the revised report that was sent out yesterday. Okay, thank you. First of all, Mr. Hart, I see you standing over there. Did you want to add anything? Are you just here for moral support? Or, okay, that works too. That's appreciated. All right, we'll go into a board discussion. Commissioner Wilson. Thank you. I'm sorry, what was your name? Dylan. Hi, Dylan. Thank you. You did a good job. I just want you to confirm a couple of things for me. First, did you feel like you were supplied with all of the documentation you needed to make a good assessment of this project? Well, we were hired to do an independent assessment. We were provided details about the stadium itself. I think that proposal was public. However, again, as I stated in the presentation, there are details that are missing that just cause us to have to make assumptions regarding the type and intensity of development for the ancillary development. And then for the other uses, again, we were supplied those by the team. So specifically, when the note was that detailed site plans for the stadium district were not provided by the team, it led AECOM to make assumptions regarding the type of intensity and development. How significant of an impact was that for you to determine whether or not this is actually going to be a viable study? I mean, how big of a variable was that? Was it a small variable? Or could it disastrously change what you provided? Well, I will say that, again, we weren't doing a feasibility study. It's a supportable development saying that based on historical trends of development, ultimately, this is what could be captured on site. Certainly, if we were given more detail, there would be a greater level of accuracy in terms of what they're planning, but those details are currently missing. So we stand by ready to review additional information if it's provided. I understand. Then just real quickly, some other slides. Your market analysis for all of the apartments, you pretty drastically changed, speaking of accuracy, the amount of apartments that of RCL Co. provided, you drastically changed that. I mean, it was a huge pivot. And you did that, according to your report, I want to confirm, based off of market rate analysis. And the reason that I'm asking is because the team has advertised prolifically around the community that there would be affordable housing. So since we know that is part of their end game, how significantly would it impact all of those multifamily units that you base this off of, with the reality that it sounds like at least some of, if not a lot of, will be affordable? Well, certainly to the level that affordable housing would be part of the project, that will impact the taxability. Negatively? Negatively. Negatively. The taxability would be reduced. Okay. But again, those are assumptions that we weren't provided. However, the 100% market rate was based on feedback from the raise during our process. Now, on page 26, this was the one that really caught me off guard reading the study. From day one, I was at the opening press conference. They announced $6 billion of new taxable revenue, which I believe is on page 26. Looks like your team reduced that by about 67%. Can you walk me through what led to that? Looks like you reduced it from 6.05 to 2.24 billion. And the 2.24 has now increased due to our revisions to the 2.7, almost 2.8 billion during the period. Okay. So it's not quite as drastic. However, It's still big. Right. And certainly over such a long analysis period of 30 years, there are so many different assumptions that go into just how the state or district would grow over time in terms of the development that's captured there, as well as the value of it that our CLCO might assume versus our team. But you don't know because you had to guess so much. Well, right. And again, we were asked to do a review of their, of the information that was provided in that report. But it wasn't a point by point assessment of their modeling. Ours is an independent analysis of the opportunity at the stadium district that is ultimately built up from original research that we've done. On the property tax assessment, it looks like a variable that came in late. Does yours assess all of the potential square footage? Did it take into account the reality that the Hillsborough College may be retaining all of the property and only leasing it? So is your property tax assessment off of all of that land that now might not be eligible to be assessed property tax, only the verticality would be potentially? So we, in our analysis, we did not separate land value from building value. However, the market values in terms of the various uses basically baked into those assessed values that already exist across the county. There is a mix of the two different values into, say, per square foot assessed value metric that we would use in our modeling. So did it take into account that if it was leased back there would be a reduced amount of square footage that we would be able to assess? Isn't that true? If it retained as a tax immune agency? Right. There would be a, there would be a portion of the, I guess, the per square foot value metrics that would have to be taken out. Yeah, and I would be interested to hear how large of a variable that is. I just have a few more since, I mean, it was 108 page slide. So you can understand. On page 28, you went through something that you didn't guess. You were able to base assumptions off of what happens nationwide off of teams' attendance rates. And you basically pointed out that even after a team enjoys the excitement of moving to a new area, which it's not really moving to a new area. It's just slightly better geographical location than where it is right now in terms of accessibility for everybody. You still found in your analysis that the attendance would still only average out to be 20,500 per game, still placing the raise in the bottom third of MLB attendance. And that is a pretty fair. I'm just asking because as we heard, this is an over a one point, a $1 billion investment from accounting. Absolutely. So that number is correct. And I, and one other thing you said on your slides that I didn't catch. Is it right that your slide said that locally over the 30 year period, we would only project to collect in taxable revenue $1.3 billion? No. So the gross collections are all collections that would be produced. Local. The net value of the $1.4 billion, again, is just the portions of those full tax rates that could be available for potential financing options for the project. Which would potentially be reduced by the other new variables of affordable housing, the leasing of the property. The reason I'm asking is because it seems like it's going to take us, our return on investment would potentially be 30 years at this point. We would be at net neutral of collectible taxes over the 30 year period compared to what we were projected to put into it locally. That's, that's the question I was getting to. On your net speculative additional assessments, you changed the CDD rates quite a bit. I was just wondering what, what led to that. That was a last minute change that I wasn't expecting and I had a lot of questions about it. Sure. Yeah. Let me actually pull up the report. Okay. So I'm actually going to scroll all the way to the end, pardon the craziness for one moment. Okay. So I have two slides prepared for the revisions that we, the last minute revisions that we implemented into our report. So getting to your question about the CDD. So ultimately in the model and what I'll explain in the red text here is essentially that the, the 2% that is applied to those, the, the retail food and beverage and parking sales within the district. The ancillary development has 110 million, as you can see there on the slide that was accidentally double counted in the other uses portion. It was just, it was an error within one of my formulas where it's all kind of grouped together in the model and I just extended it too far to where it included ancillary development instead of just the other uses. So that's why it came down from 136 million in terms of the other uses collections to 26. So it was a double counting error that, that I found after we had already issued the initial final report. I'll close my questioning with, um, so, so right now we have new unexpected variables that weren't taken into account. You had a pretty significant lack of detailed information to improve the study that you did. These new variables would seemingly, um, greatly reduce potentially the amount of taxable value that the community would see. And then you, on closing you, you changed the phase one, the phase, the, the phase chart is pretty difficult to understand. But it looks like from the outside looking in that the taxpayers would be required to front load all of their money. And the team would not really have, um, a significant investment in, in the initial phase. Is that what the phase one suggests? Our analysis doesn't get into the financing of the project, so I, I can't comment on that. Well, how much would phase one cost? Um. Based off of your page 20, 42, excuse me, that you changed actually. I didn't even notice you changed it at first. But you changed what the assessed value would be. So it confused me a little bit on the 2029. So these assessed values are, again, based, so it's not exactly construction cost. These are assessed values that are taken from, um, I guess, representative, should I state this? Uh, from our market research, we have built out assumptions. Again, based on a level of quality that we are, again, assuming for each of these uses. And then that is how we get to the assessed value for what has been delivered in each of the years that you're seeing here. But it is not exactly a development cost, um, analysis. Okay. Great. I really appreciate it. All right. Thank you, sir. I don't see anyone else in the queue. Um, please stick around. We have some questions at the end. Uh, Julia, you're up. Thank you. Good afternoon. You have all received, uh, this, this item relates to the, uh, request, uh, to have a legal opinion on the use of the community investment tax and, uh, what, what lawful purpose it can be used for. Uh, as I indicated, I was going to ask for an outside counsel opinion on this particular issue since I was not involved in the process of your renewal of your CIT and thought that that was prudent to do in this instance. And you have all received, um, uh, outside legal opinion from our bond counsel, Bryant Miller Olive. First, um, let me just say that Bryant Miller Olive BMO has been the county's bond counsel for 25 years. This is what they do. This is what the, they analyze, and this is how they have served us for that period of time. They have a highly respected role and had been really invaluable to us and to other, uh, other bond issuers all over the state. Um, their involvement in this instance was appropriate because if we were to go into a bond issuance, uh, situation, it would be their role to review all the sources of funds review. Uh, the, the validity of the, the resources and what we were going forward with to ensure that they were legally sufficient. So this is a letter that they would have, or this issue they would have had to analyze and that would have been part of their role. And what I want to just also indicate to you to make sure that everybody understands, cause I heard some comments about just getting outside legal opinions. That, that, that is part of their role. And that is something that they are obligated to do as our bond counsel, um, to summarize their legal opinion. And I think everybody's seen it and read it and probably heard about it. They have determined that there is no prohibition about using the CIT renewal funding as a source of revenue to pay for a new county owned sports facility. And so moving forward, as it relates to that issue, we are comfortable and confident that we can proceed forward in that way. Uh, I just want to make one other comment, um, on this issue at our April 1st discussion where, where I was asked to proceed forward with this legal opinion. There was some other additional conversations regarding voter intent that wasn't specifically reviewed in this opinion, but subsequent to that. And I have received some additional information, it may be prudent for us to proceed forward with an additional outside legal opinion from an election law expert as it relates to that question. And that is something I will, will be pursuing as needed. Dwayne Draper from BMO is here. If there's any additional questions or information is needed. Otherwise I have no additional comments on this. All right. Thank you, Ms. Mandel. Commissioner Wessel. Just real briefly and thank you for, and I, I understand you're in an uncomfortable position. I get it. Um, is this outside counsel that you're now recommending also going to discuss the reality that there will probably be several members of staff that will absolutely be subpoenaed on how they canvassed slash marketed this to the public of which numerous times it was advertised, including on a legal document from the city of Tampa's chief of staff, um, presented to the city of council that there was advertised in the, the options were selected that no new facilities would be used of the CIT. Will they be reviewing all of that, um, for the potential reality that it presented in court? As we proceed forward, if, if, in looking at that issue, I think it would be appropriate to look at everything to determine whether or not that, that particular issue remains a legal issue. And what that means to say that there is an issue with voter intent, but I will certainly have that additional conversation with them. I'm, I'm just trying to avoid the long history that the county is developing of unfortunately losing in court on referendum issues. So thank you. I very much agree with you. Thank you, commissioner. Okay. Don't see anyone else in the queue. So Mr. Hordeaux, Mr. Fessler. You guys are up. Just a little taller. Good afternoon, commissioners. Happy to be before you today to talk about what is probably the largest development in Hillsborough County's history that's been proposed, at least to our knowledge at the staff level. Um, we do have a number of slides that we want to go through. I will endeavor to be as brief as possible, but I do want to make a couple of points on the first few slides. Tom Fessler will go over a number of the financial slides so that you can fully understand the options as we've developed them. And that you can ask questions to get as informed answers as possible. Then I'll close it with some other additional, uh, bits of information that we need to continue to work on in order to craft the MOU to bring something back to you. That really satisfies all of the issues and not just some of them. So as you've heard this and really this information has been gleaned from conversations with the Rays as well as all public media reports. As you've heard, it's a mixed use development. It's three phases, uh, 31,000 seats that would be a centerpiece for a new ballpark. Um, the district itself is approximately 130 acres. There's new residential commercial retail office and entertainment venues proposed. Um, the site is the existing Hillsborough College, Dale Mabry Campus, which is immediately across the street to the west from the, uh, Raymond James Stadium where the Tampa Bay Buccaneers play. The Rays indicate that Hillsborough College, uh, is to be reconstructed as part of their proposal. From what we understand from news reports, the governor has pledged $150 million for that rebuild. Um, we know that no local funds are proposed in any of the options that we're presenting to you. Um, we also want to make sure that, that we note that the cost of the facility is really the Rays estimate. That's $2.3 billion. And they initially have asked us for $1.15 billion. But as Tom will explain to you, that has been reduced in the MOU. Um, we still want to make sure that we're getting the best value possible. So we have consistently advocated for value engineering. So that we can make sure that the ballpark amenities are things that are suitable for public use. And not just adding, adding luxuries or things that would be solely for the private team or, or any events that they may have. Finally, the, uh, construction deadline is April, 2029. And I can tell you that from staff's perspective, that's a very aggressive timeline. We think that there's still a lot of work that needs to be done. I know that this board wants to get the information as quickly as possible. We're working as hard as we can. I can assure you, uh, sometimes around the clock to try and do the analysis and make sure the information we're getting and providing to you is accurate. You heard from AECOM and you saw, I'll just briefly summarize, there's 7.6 million square feet in total development. Uh, 1.7 square feet is planned by the Rays and their development partners. Uh, 5.9 million square feet is to be market driven. In other words, as the development matures, there will be more development. There's, as Dylan expressed, there's a little bit of uncertainty as to what types it might be or when it might materialize. The 30 year gross fiscal impact from the confirmed available sources is about 2.7 billion, as Dylan explained in his revised slide. Those are ad valorem taxes for both the city and the county, state and county sales taxes, tourism development tax, and we have also included in here a proposed 8% ticket sales surcharge. Phase one assessed values are estimated to be 1.4 billion in 2034. The total assessed values are estimated to be 4.8 billion for the entire stadium district in 2058. Excluding, of course, the ballpark and Hillsborough College because they are immune from property taxation. And that, of course, assumes that the county owns the ballpark. The direct economic impacts, as Dylan stated, total about 63 billion. Indirect impacts brings the total to 75 billion. Our guiding principles have been applied consistently throughout this process. We wanted to make absolutely sure that the Rays and the public and you as the board knew that we were not inclined to jeopardize the county's three AAA bond ratings, nor were we inclined to take on development risk. And finally, we are not inclined to provide local public dollars for items that don't have a public benefit. Now, I know there's a lot more detail that we're going to be talking about. I'm going to turn it over to Tom to go over some of the financial information and then I'll be back when he talks about that. Good afternoon, Tom. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Tom Fessler, Chief Financial Administrator. Today, I was going to be covering with you kind of the financial aspects of the proposed project. As Mr. Horridale stated, the raised funding request is $1.15 billion, their original request, and that represented 50% of the total stadium project. We recently received a proposed MOU from them. Their request had been reduced to $1 billion, $1 million, $750 million from the county, and $251 million from the city of Tampa. This reduction is not necessarily because of a reduced expectation. It's because of some reclassification of certain funding sources from the public side to the private side of the ledger. The framework of the funding options that we're going to present to you today are still under discussion between the county, the city, and the Rays. Nothing has been committed to at this point. Again, we continue to evaluate things. The options today are designed to achieve as much of the raised funding requests as we can with viable funding options. You will likely find some of these funding options challenging to approve. We had limited ability to get to the $1 billion or the $750 on the county side without looking at every available option possible. However, we have made best efforts and we have been negotiating with the Rays in good faith. Adding additional funding options at this point or increasing the amounts that we're proposing today, we believe would start to impact our guiding principles that Greg just went over. When identifying options, we have also taken into consideration the fact that as we go into our fiscal year 27 budget process, we are expecting property tax values to be the growth in property taxes to be lower than that's been in over 10 years. In addition to that, there has been a legislative change that has taken effect that has eliminated sales tax on commercial leases. That is having a significant impact on the CIT revenues along with just general economic conditions softening and a weaker sales tax collections. These expectations, in addition to still not knowing whether we're going to have to deal with property tax reform in the fiscal year 28 budget. As you know, the state legislature still has not adopted a budget this year, and there still could be property tax reform that ends up on the ballot this November. One significant challenge in meeting the funding requests from the Rays is that there is an expectation that the majority, if not all of the funds will be available during the construction period, which means we have to issue bonds. When we issue bonds, that means that the proceeds or the dollars available to issue those bonds have to cover not only principle on the bond issues, but also interest. So therefore, on the funding options you see on slide six, the dollars actually available that need to be available to meet those are greater than we're showing up on this slide. The categories that you see here today, there are five of them on this slide. I will go over some of them on future slides in a little bit more detail, are the community investment tax, tourist development taxes, the community redevelopment area revenues, reserves, and finally CDBG disaster recovery funds. In addition to these sources, the state of Florida has donated approximately 130 acres of land to the project. And as Greg said, Governor DeSantis has pledged that there may be up to another $150 million available to rebuild Hillsborough College on the site. And finally, there is an expectation that we, from the Rays, that there could be up to $30 million in additional transportation improvements provided by the state. We wanted to point this out because we believe that when we start talking about public support for the project, that the state contributions are significant and they should be added to the county and city contributions when looking at the total public support for the project. While this slide shows that the county and the city are $75 million short of the Rays original funding request, I did want to point out that $75 million short means that we are still meeting 93% of the objective with the options that we have on the project. And finally, as it relates to this slide, we are committed to continuing our discussions with the Rays and to further explore the opportunity that's in front of us today. Now, maybe getting into some of the funding sources a little bit more as we talk about the community investment tax. In November of 2024, the voters approved an extension of the CIT for an additional 15 years. The initial project list that was approved by the board was built on an assumption that there would be 3%, an annual 3% revenue growth on the extended CIT with a first year revenue amount of $200 million. The Rays original estimate of funds that they needed for their project that could come from CIT was $600 million. This estimate was built on an assumption of annual growth rate of 4%, not 3%, and first year revenues of $220 million. They believe that these two changes in assumptions would provide for their project while not impacting any of the projects previously approved by the board or the cities. After the county and the city has evaluated their assumptions, we believe that they are not realistic. The state of Florida, as I said, has just enacted some legislation that's impacting our CIT revenues to the tune of about $12 to $15 million a year. So that's fairly significant on $200 million. Additionally, the economy has softened and we are experiencing weaker collections from the CIT. So while we are still comfortable going forward with a $200 million first year assumption, we are not comfortable that we can support a $220 million assumption. Therefore, that $600 million has come down because of that. The next thing or the next assumption is that that I'll discuss in the next couple of slides is the growth factor of 4%. We believe that that growth factor and assumption needs to come down to closer to 3.7%, and I will explain why. The current year, 30-year CIT, which expires in November, has a growth rate that has been averaging just over 4%. So the renewed CIT, as I had said on December 1st, is built on an average growth rate of 3%. As previously stated, the Ray's strategy was to fund a portion of the project with the difference between the planned growth of 3% and the historical average growth of 4%. We believe that if we were to move forward with this type of arrangement or assumption, that we would need like a make-whole provision within any agreement. What I mean by that is that if we fall short of the revenue expectation of 4% by any amount, the Ray's would need to cover the difference. When we are exploring that option, we had some conversations with our financial advisor and our bond counsel. And there's a bond test or a tax law out there basically that indicates that if we were at a 4% level, that would be considered a private investment into the project. And that we would have to issue taxable bonds versus tax exempt bonds. That would decrease the bond proceeds by about $100 million. So that was very significant. So what we did is we took a look at it and we said, what can we do that where we can still issue tax exempt bonds and what level can we go to? And that level was 3.7% versus 4%. When we issue non or tax exempt bonds at 3.7%, it would still be a loss of about $50 million in bond proceeds. But that would be much better than having taxable bonds where we lose $100 million in proceeds. The bottom line on the CIT, and this is the funding source where I will spend the most time, I will speed things up after this, is that we cannot accept the Ray's CIT assumption leading to a $600 million being available for their project. Our alternate proposal proposes an increased growth rate assumption from 3% to 3.7% and also utilization of county and city current project budget combined of $325 million in order to create $336 million in current bond proceeds that could be available for the project at the beginning of the project. As far as the tourist development taxes go, the proposed option is $268 million. This includes a 35 year bond. This would be repaid with 6 cent tourist development tax and backed up by one of the first 3 cents for the bond issue. We are also proposing as a potential option using $40 million of current reserves in the first 3 cent and the 6 cent TDT. I did need to point out that the 6 cent TDT is currently being used. 30% of that is being used to support Visit Tampa Bay. That 6 cent is also being used to support the county's cultural assets program. And we have a $2 million a year commitment to the Tampa Convention Center through 2031. When we went back, when we evaluated the CIT assumptions and we realized that the revenues were going to drop far below the $600 million that the Rays were expecting, we did go back to the drawing board and we looked at, you know, basically we looked in the couch cushions to see where we could find some revenue. What we did is we started evaluating our unrestricted reserves. We have unrestricted reserves in our budget in order to provide budget flexibility and be able to address annual needs and potential opportunities that come up as well as revenue shortfalls. Having strong reserves is considered to be a best practice. However, when we went back and looked at across our unrestricted reserves, we were able to come up with and we think we could come up with about $132 million in cash by accessing current reserves. That would reduce our budget flexibility, but we also would still have some, we will still have unrestricted reserves with some flexibility in the budget. It would just be at a reduced level. And with that, I will turn it back over to Greg so we can go over other potential funding opportunities. Thanks, Tom. As you can appreciate, this is a very complex and detailed analysis and we've spent considerable time trying to outline funding options for you. These again, as Tom said, are not recommendations. We're not there yet. There are other issues that we want to make sure that we explore. The other potential funding options we think are worthy of discussion. We heard from Dylan earlier about the CDD. We think that that should be explored. We know that the state of Florida has transportation improvements that the rates have indicated they're going to fund. So we want to make sure that we nail that down as well. There's Opportunity Zone and New Market Tax Credits that are available. They were renewed last year in the big beautiful bill in July of 25. So we want to make sure that we investigate those. They could provide a significant boost to the project. However, I should note that staff believes that those federal dollars should offset any local contribution. There are other parking revenues that we need to discuss. We think that that has a potential sizable positive impact on the cash flow overall that might be available from the county. There are a number of other deal points and other considerations and I won't bore you with reading all of these. But I will note that the ownership of the park after the lease term, the 35-year lease term, is a significant issue for us. As is, who's paying for capex? Under our current facilities, teams are responsible for paying for capex. And we think that that's appropriate here as well. The value engineering is a very critical point for us. We believe that we need to have the right to review and approve, not just the drawings, but also monitor throughout construction, just to make sure that if there is some savings, that they get distributed equally among the partners and not necessarily used to substitute something that the private party would otherwise be responsible for. We have tax collector that needs to have that facility relocated. So we need to think about how that factors into this overall project as well. Finally, there is an impact on other sports facilities. And as has been reported in the media, there are other teams that are interested in this conversation. I'll just leave it at that. Next steps and timeline, there are a number of significant steps that need to be taken. There is the approval of any MOU that would have to come before this board, City of Tampa, City Council, the CRA for the City of Tampa, and the Rays. We want to make sure that all the partners have the opportunity to review it and they understand the terms of the deal, assuming that a deal can be constructed. Public hearings. The board has mentioned that you all want to have some public hearings, public discussion. We would need to schedule those and have the time to pursue that. There's legislative discussions that need to occur with the funding that has been pledged for the college. We know there's budget appropriations now that are ongoing. We have heard that there's some money in there. We don't have a guarantee that all of the money that's been pledged might be available this year. We don't know what the structure is other than to say we have been told that it will be forthcoming in future years. Finally, there's the Planning Commission and city zoning processes. If that needs to occur, I know the Rays are looking at an alternative process. It wouldn't necessarily require them to go through a full-blown comp plan or city zoning process. We're on the outside looking in on that process. It is controlled by both the Planning Commission and the City of Tampa. So my last point is that the MOU really can't be fully put together and I'd hesitate to say that it's going to be by a date certain without these items being resolved. I know there's been discussion about bringing something forward on May 6th. I can assure you County Administrator has worked as hard as the rest of us to try and meet whatever timeline we can to get something before you. But this is a complex deal. I keep saying that because I think sometimes it might be represented that, hey, this has been done. It's all ready to go. Why don't you just vote on it? We're not at this stage yet with staff where we feel comfortable with all the dollar amounts. That are being proposed and how those might impact the county budget. We are interested in moving forward to get to the MOU. So that's what we're looking for today in the board discussion. What points are we looking for? Or what can we take away from this so that we can factor that in to a subsequent MOU? And with that, Tom and I, and I'm sure the County Administrator and County Attorney are available for questions. All right. Thank you, Greg. Appreciate you and Tom's presentation going to board discussion. Commissioner Wolstel. Thank you. Hey, Tom. I've just got some quick questions for you. And no one up here doubts staff's professionalism. And even when we disagree, you guys work really hard to get us all the information we want. I don't think anybody's doubting that. Could you bring back up slide 11 real quick? And I do agree, today we're having a workshop about the financial structure that's being proposed. And I do agree that certain elements of it should not be negotiated publicly. The rent, the MOU rent I saw, everyone's going to have questions about that. When are we going to discuss the MOU? That's not today, right? Yeah, because everyone's going to have questions about those things and you guys can negotiate what you think is fair and equitable back to the taxpayers. But in terms of financial structure, we've had conversations. Now, on Commissioner Hagan's item where we motioned, I think unanimously, did we unanimously motion to approve you guys to talk? Yeah, I thought so. On February the 4th, it ends in saying, or begins with saying, to be clear, number three, no general revenue funding is being considered. And that's what we motioned, approved for you guys to discuss. But which bullet points on here, and for the public's interest, when I say general revenue, I mean your property taxes, which are being considered to be removed, which I'm definitely going to be voting for if the legislature gets that. Call your senators, tell them to support the House's bill to remove our property taxes. Which one of these are property taxes? Commissioner, I would say the majority of them are general, are coming from general fund sources. Capital project reallocations, I'd have to look at specifically what projects we would be asking to reallocate. There could be some different funding sources there. Most of the other sources other than pre-funding the pet resources facility would be probably, the source from which those funds came would probably have been general funds. Okay. I asked you, so we in January or February, we all had many months. We had a nice young lady, Ms. Barker come through, talked to us about details of the lightning deal. Even I voted yes on it, because I think the tourist dollars, they are, I don't want to call a tax harmless, but to the local community, they're pretty harmless and they are a benefit. And that deal was very straightforward. It was not convoluted. It was, hey, we're going to come in with our portion of the money. I told them I disagreed with their percentage, you know, whatever. We had pain points. It was 70-30, this one 54-46, whatever. And they presented a list. You guys presented a history and you proposed a 3% methodology growth of the fifth cent. The sixth cent is identical to the fifth cent, right? And those were provided to you, right? That was exhibit A of that briefing in December, I think it was, or January. And we ended up giving them a quarter billion dollars where it showed. Do you have the printout that my aide supplied to you applying that same growth methodology through 2061, which would be a 35-year repayment year by year? I do. It was provided to me before the meeting, yes. And do you, are you able to authenticate that growth number from the year 2027 through 2061, 2062, applying the same 3% growth methodology on a rebate program, that that number in total would be 738 million dollars roughly? I would assume, Commissioner, if the math is correct on the calculation, that it would be. So, if we were able to strike that, and I would move to approve that deal immediately, to be clear, to provide the Tampa Bay Rays almost three quarters of a billion dollars of our local tourist development taxes from the sixth cent on some type of rebate program, that's gross numbers. They supply their money, we supply our money, which is a partnership, which is what we've proposed, a public-private partnership. I will provide that information digitally to you guys. I used the personal note strategy to make sure, sorry, I had to slide that in there, Ms. Mandel, to make sure that I'll make that available to the public. But everybody can confirm that a 35 year rebate program out of the six cents of the tourist development dollars, using the exact same rebate program and partnership that we use with the Tampa Bay Lightning for their 15 years extension, would provide around 738 million dollars to the Tampa Bay Rays. And I don't understand, has that been presented as an alternative? I mean, that's basically our number. So, I will step in just for a moment. Sure. I think it's important to note that, yes, staff has proposed a reimbursement basis funding option. Okay. That has not been accepted by the Rays. There may be an opportunity, depending upon the direction received by this board, for us to continue to pursue that. It is important to note that the Rays have indicated they need the local public funding upfront. And by upfront, we mean during the construction period. That is the first three years opening in 2029. So, our perspective is that we are open to any kind of reimbursement process, whether that's wholly reimbursement or partially reimbursement. And I think that that is something that, if that's the direction of this board, we can take that back in our conversation. Well, I guess that brings me to my next question then. And you did not pay me to do that. I know, I know. But it does bring me to my next question. This presentation, it makes it look like, ooh, you know, the board has to do this. But there's many options out there. And I was confused why we haven't proposed this. Have we requested? I've seen some back and forths where it looks like other agencies have requested information from the Tampa Bay Rays that was refused or declined to provide to them, including this AECOM report that we just went through. Have we requested any document to substantiate? Since it sounds like we are being required to front load the taxpayers' money on the front of this deal, does any document exist to substantiate that they have their portion of the money? Because a rebate program sounds very fair. You give yours. We'll give ours at the same time. Commissioner, on slide 13, there's a bullet indicates that one of the open items is a verification of financial capacity of the Rays' Ownership Group. That's an open item. Okay. Then I'm very concerned. And I will make that document, that financial analysis available to the public, which I'm sure staff will be able to authenticate the numbers. Maybe I'm off by 10 mil or so. Who knows? Thank you. All right. Thank you. Commissioner. I would point out, in addition, that any kind of make-hole provision, and I should have mentioned this when we were going through it, staff wants to make absolutely sure that it is a surety that we accept and that it is ironclad and can provide the performance that is promised. All right. Thank you. Let's please be mindful of the time, Commissioner Miller and then Commissioner Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I'm not sure, Mr. Howard, if this question's for you or for Mr. Gilman, but in looking at the economic impact studies, there's about a 20 million, I'm sorry, $20 billion gap between what the Rays presented is the economic impact and AECOMs. Could you talk to that for me, please? So just to reiterate, the question is why there's a difference in the economic impacts that were presented by RCL Co. in their report and others. Yes. Yes. So my answer would be similar to a question about the difference in the development program itself in that there are several assumptions built into an economic impact model that could and would likely vary between RCL Co.'s analysis and ours. I know for a fact that I know for a fact that they used what are called RIMS II multipliers from the Bureau of Economic Analysis while we used some from a private input-output model service known as Lightcast. So already we have a difference in the multipliers themselves. In our report, we did supply detailed economic impact figures for each of the various uses and the industries that we were using to represent those impacts and the multipliers therein. We don't have any of that detail from RCL Co. and it's not that it doesn't exist. It's just that we haven't been given access to it. You do have to purchase those multipliers from the BEA. So we would have to do that in order to see them. But again, it's a long timeline. Inflation rates can vary. We already know that the underlying development project varies in terms of what we came up in our supportable development analysis between that and what they came up with in their analysis. So those are just a few of potential differences. Thank you for that. And I understand we only have an hour and a half, but for the public's consumption, it is your job to provide an analysis based on assumptions, correct? Correct. Okay. Thank you very much. I have another question, sir, if that's okay. There's many of the calls to my office are related around the traffic concerns specifically around the college. And in both presentations, we talked about the potential funding from the Florida Department of Transportation. I do see FDOT in the audience. Is it possible for him to come up and speak? Sure. Justin Hall, if you would. Sorry. Hey, good afternoon. Justin Hall at the District 7 Secretary. Sorry. Thank you, sir. Would you speak, please, to what you know of the most current information on what the state is committed to to help alleviate the traffic concerns? Sure. So we've been, as with any large development, you know, we work with the developer to understand what are the traffic impacts, not only vehicular traffic impacts, but pedestrian impacts. So we've been working with the developer's team on, you know, what improvements need to be made based on the traffic assumptions. And so we have already programmed several projects to address certain traffic concerns, whether it be pedestrian bridges for pedestrian movement, certain intersection improvements, some capacity improvements around the proposed site. And the funding sources would be? They're state funding sources. And these, I tell everybody that's not taking away from my existing program, these are additional funds that were brought in from the outside. So they're not taking away from anything locally. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Commissioner Cohen. Thank you very much. Before I make a couple of comments, I just want to ask, and I think this is for Mr. Horvidell or Mr. Fessler. On page six, where it's listed CDBG disaster relief stormwater $30 million, what is that exactly? Great question. So we have CDBG DR dollars that were a result of the hurricane season of 2024. This area flooded. There are improvements that could be beneficial, not just for the stadium. Again, this is our thought process, not just for the stadium, but for the entirety of Drew Park and the immediate surrounding area. Some of the improvements could be done on the proposed stadium site, the stadium district, and that would benefit the surrounding community. So it would, in essence, require approval from HUD. We would not include it unless this board felt that that was an appropriate funding mechanism to help assist with stormwater relief from the entire surrounding area. So it's an option because the stormwater dollars were already going to be focused in that particular geographic area anyway? Yes, sir. Okay. And then I had another question. I wanted to go back to Ms. Wise for just a minute. I know that there will be ample time to discuss the issue of using the CIT as part of this project. But I think it's very important to point out, as we were going over the review prior to this, the money that's being designated from the CIT is over and above the 3% growth that was planned to deliver a full list of projects that we advertise to the public. So what I'm saying is, all of the things that we advertise to the public, the transportation improvements, the nine new fire stations, the public safety designations, all of that is off the top and safe before this expenditure is being considered. Correct? That is correct. The only category that we were looking at is that community facilities section. So the transportation work, the lithium pinecrests, that's all in the current CIT projection and that's unchanged? Correct. That's all the transportation and public works, public safety, public utilities, all untouched. Okay. Because I'm sure we'll get into a larger discussion about the CITs, but I think it's important just to set the parameters of where we are. I just want to really compliment the staff in your negotiations thus far. You know, we gave you a seven to zero vote and asked you to go and start working on this. And there's been a lot of pressure to come up with a date and to say when we were going to vote on it and, you know, to sort of in many ways put the cart in front of the horse. And what I see is that you're going through a very methodical process. You've identified a significant number of issues that would need to be resolved before we can actually get to a deal. And what you've asked us for is some guidance as to what are some of the things that we are particularly concerned about. You know, sometimes in life where you stand depends on where you sit. And in my particular case, I sit as the representative of the single member district where this is proposed to be built. And so I particularly want to point out that one of the big concerns that I have is that the community benefits agreement aspect of this be negotiated, transparent, and that the neighborhoods be very much a part, the neighborhoods and the business owners be very much a part of shaping what those community benefits agreements are going to look like. And that we have some assurance of what they're going to look like as we as we move forward. Commissioner Miller touched on the traffic, but the traffic concerns are very real. It's been pointed out to me that this is half the size, this facility of Raymond James Stadium, that events will never occur on the same day. But even so, we need to see the analysis and the planning that shows that there's a plan to deal with the traffic, at least until we have some transit options to supplement for people in terms of their car. The other thing is that the tax collector's office there is a very real issue. For people in my district, for people countywide, it is the busiest tax collector's office. It's the place people go to renew their driver's licenses and license plates. And we need to make sure that the expenditure that taxpayers have put forth to provide that facility is covered and that the tax collector is on board with whatever the plan is. I agree very strongly with all of you that it's very important that this project be value engineered. $2.3 billion is a lot of money for a ballpark. A lot of people have questioned whether it really needs to be that expensive. And if it does, we need to see why. And if it doesn't, the savings could easily be used to help satisfy some of these gaps that you've identified. I also just wanted to point out that the other teams are still a very important consideration for all of us. And we are all going to be waiting to hear how they feel in terms of – they've all expressed to me that they are working with the county to feel assurance that this proposal will not negatively impact them. But I would expect them to be public in terms of whatever concerns they may have or whatever they want to say in support of the project. I think it's really important that they weigh in. And then finally, I just want to say that it's very, very important in something like this that we protect the taxpayer. And I think that your requirement that the county not be burdened with the development risk going forward is a very, very important component of this negotiation. So those are the fundamental points that you've made that I think are really important going forward. And it's my hope after today that you'll just continue to negotiate and work on this. I think that, you know, from my perspective, I would love to be able to vote yes on this. But I can only vote yes on it if I'm absolutely convinced that it's the right thing for the community and for the taxpayers. And I think it's a marvelous opportunity for us from a development point of view and also from the idea that we would have Major League Baseball here. It's been a dream of this community for a long time. It's been something we've been talking about for a long time. But at the end of the day, I recognize that it's going to be your ability to put together a deal that will work. And I just want to tell you that I appreciate all the work that you've all done so far. That includes the Sports Authority and the County Attorney's Office and the City of Tampa. And I look forward to seeing where we come out on all this. All right, Commissioner Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to just make sum it up real quickly. We all know and hopefully we want to raise here. But having a $75 million shortfall, I'm hoping that between the two parties, we can come to an agreement on the financing where that the county would not be cut short and that our constituents would be able to receive all the services that we promised them when we voted for the CIT tax in 2024. And Ms. Wise, thank you for bringing up the public facility and the dollar amount, because that was one of the issues I was concerned with my briefing with you and Julia the other day. And so I want the deal to work, but we are short of funding and the two parties raised and county need to come together to see how we can make the deal work for the best for the county and for the raised. And that our constituents would be promised and have what we said we would do with the CIT tax. And so we resolve that issue today. Yes, the CIT tax funds can be used for public facility. Thank you, Mr. Chair. All right, thank you. I'm going to make a couple of comments before we keep going around and around here. First of all, I want to highlight one issue that Bonnie and Greg referenced because it's an important one. And that's regarding the partnerships with our existing sports teams, the Lightning Bucks and Yankees. In light of some of the chatter that's been circulating, I want to be crystal clear that this board and administration values our partnerships with our sports teams. But more importantly, our commitment to them has not changed or been reduced due to the possibility of our future raised ballpark. By the way, I want to congratulate the Lightning for making the playoffs again this year. Let's take it to the stinking Canadians in the first round. We are fortunate to have these franchises in our community. They are extremely valuable partnerships that extend far beyond the wins and losses on the ice and on the field. While the contractual obligations and agreements are different, they are all county-owned facilities. And this board and administration has consistently through the years recognized that it's in our best interest to maintain technologically advanced state-of-the-art facilities. Some folks might say, why is that? Well, it's because the NCAA, the NFL, the NHL and promoters have very high standards on where their major events are held. Do we want to host a Taylor Swift, a women's Final Four, or NCAA Frozen Four, College Football National Championship? There are so many concerts and events held at our facilities beyond the sports teams. And I think at times people lose track of that. That not only improves our residents' quality of life, but generates significant revenue. For an example, last year alone, Benchmark International Arena hosted 140 events. I'll give you another example. There's a band called BTS. I've never even heard of them. Apparently they're a big deal. We're having three concerts, Raymond James Stadium. What I'm told is the economic impact of this band is going to be bigger than Taylor Swift, which netted the county close to, I believe, close to 1.8 million in tax revenues. So I'm not going to distinguish between facilities and timing because they're all different. However, we know that all three of our existing facilities will need future innovations and improvements. To the administration's credit, while crafting the CIT, they planned ahead and thought about how could we potentially use the CIT to meet our obligations. It's important to point out that those numbers included for every category and project were essentially placeholders. No specific funding commitments were made to any team or organization, including one that we recently talked about, Lowry Park Zoo. Partly because we don't know the actual cost of repairs, of improvements or investments that might be made a year from now, two years from now, five years from now, ten years from now. And as an example, one of our teams, the Buccaneers, waited until last week to begin sharing their thoughts on the next renovation agreement. And we've been begging them for probably five years to have a conversation with us. So my point is no actual agreements or commitments were made because we didn't know. However, recognizing that they're all valuable assets, we felt it was important to ensure that all of our county and community facilities were eligible for CIT funding. But again, I want all three franchises to hear loud and clear that the door is open for future innovation agreements. We recognize these are critical partnerships. They are in the county's best interest, are in fact eminent, and we're planning on just how they can potentially be structured. So I thought that was important to highlight. Two other things real quick, and then we'll keep going. And Greg, I think he did a great job touching on this. But I can say with certainty, and I'm going to ask Julia to correct me if I'm wrong, the final product of the MOU would likely look dramatically different than what's been disseminated. Was that accurate? That is accurate. Okay, I just wanted to say that. I'm not going to go into the 75 billion economic impact and all the numbers because frankly it's a little mind-boggling. However, I do have two questions that I feel truly reflects the generational opportunity that we have before us and why it warrants serious and continued consideration. I think this is going to probably be for Tom. Tom, you still here? I was on this board decades ago when we recognized Drew Park was blighted and warranted creating a CRA. Unfortunately, 22 years later, not much has changed. Tom, the Drew Park CRA was created in 2005, right? That's correct. Okay. Over the last 22 years, the CRA has generated how much revenue, county and city combined? The increment revenue combined is approximately $28 million. Okay. How much property tax revenue will this project generate? We have to acknowledge we're assuming or we're including the assumptions that were incorporated, but what we've been presented, how much property tax revenue will this project generate over 30 years? I believe their AECOM report indicated about $907 million. Okay. So $28 million over 22 years compared to $907 million over 30 years. $28 million over 22 years, $907 million over 30 years. That's very interesting. And this is only one revenue stream that will be generated. Thanks, Tom. Julia, one question. There was some talk about, and I know this is a serious issue. It was involved, included in our unresolved issues, but I'm still unclear about this. Has the tax-exempt bond issue been resolved? I mean, I know where staff landed on being comfortable, but has that issue been resolved? It hasn't completely been resolved. We're working through that issue, but that is a significant issue as it relates to how you put this deal together. Okay. And we're continuing to work on it, and we're continuing to discuss it. Okay. Last thing I'm going to say, and then go back around. The Rays have made it very clear that, for many reasons, there's sense of urgency to either reach an agreement or cut bait, and that's my terms, not theirs. Significant progress has been made. However, as Greg suggested, a number of issues still need to be resolved, and staff has identified additional funding options that can be considered. So, I know Commissioner Cohen touched on this, but I would encourage staff to continue working on the remaining deal points internally and with the team, and make every effort possible to resolve the outstanding issues in advance of our May 6 meeting. And when I say that, I do recognize that this will require the team to make concessions on a number of issues. Okay. So, with that, we've got three more speakers, and we're scheduled to end at this time, so let's try and be brief if possible. Commissioner Cameron Cepeda, then Commissioner Willstall. Okay. Yes. Thank you all for the presentations today. They were really awesome, and thank you for your time, hard work that you put into it. However, I would like to say that, for me personally, I do not want to see any burden being put on the taxpayers. And also, my other biggest concern is the traffic that's already there on Dale Mabry. So, that's already horrific in the area, and it was good to see that the public funding options available from the state. However, of the $30 million from the state, it actually seems that it's more pedestrian improvements. So, I don't see how that would really alleviate any traffic there, because there's only so much space there, and there's really no other room to have extra lanes that would alleviate traffic in that area. So, those are my two biggest concerns there. No burden being put on the taxpayers, and also the traffic already in the area. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Willstall, and then Commissioner Bowles. Mine will be real brief, and the quality of life this will bring to the residents of West Tampa is going to be nothing less than detrimental at best and abusive at worst, because it's not a traffic situation, it's a parking situation. It's cars in the ditch blocking off of lanes, et cetera, et cetera, and there's been mixed communications about what the parking's going to be. Bonnie, I just wanted to make a, I actually do not know the answer to this question. I don't know, it's about bonding. Now, they've referenced the public facility bucket, which is an internal bucket, but when you, but to my understanding, when you go to bond a sales tax, you can't, you can't bucket. It's just, this is the revenue source, right, and this is the amount that we're bonding? So, I'm sorry, I'm going to answer, it depends. Okay. So, we could pledge a particular revenue source, like half-cent sales tax or CIT, but there's also a non-advalorem bucket of non-advalorem revenues that we often pledge as well. So, we have some debt outstanding with each of those. So, it really just depends on that structure. But you can't go to the bond courts and say, hey, we have this on our pretty sheet that says interlocal, whatever, public facilities will only be 597. So, if the CIT revenues fall flat, let's say instead of 3.7, it goes to D.2.3 because there's not enough smoothing over a 15-year period, they don't care. If it's not performing, they want their money, right? Right. So, in this particular case, and we have issued CIT debt before, I think is your example. So, if we issue CIT debt, it's the whole CIT revenue that's pledged toward repayment because you have to ensure that you have enough debt service coverage. And, of course, we would have enough debt service coverage. We do the same thing when we issue utility bonds. You know, we don't just issue it for the One Water project. We issue utility bonds and all the revenues are pledged toward repayment. I just wanted to be clear when we started trying to say, oh, it's only the public facilities. If we issue bonds against the CIT, the whole thing is eligible for the debt coverage, right? Yes. Okay. And the other point, I just wanted to point out, you know, the Tampa Sports Authority notoriously for 25 years lost this community almost $33 million of property taxes to pay for the operations of the Buck Stadiums because of the arduous revenue-sharing agreement. And solely because of Eric Hart, who's in the audience, has turned that around. And for the first years, we are no longer using your property taxes to pay for that $2 million minimum court, which we lost Poe versus Hillsborough a long time ago. So, which does bring a concern that we're not going to talk about today, which is what concerts would be harvested from the hot outdoor Buck Stadium potentially for this new stadium. And would that reintroduce an issue for that $2 million a year revenue-sharing contract? So, we'll talk about that later, Eric. Thank you. Before I call on Commissioner Bowles, I just want to say I appreciate being a member of the Sports Authority. I appreciate your comments about Eric. He's done a great job, but now he's going to have a big head that you said that. Commissioner Bowles, and then we're going to close. Yeah, thank you. I'll keep this brief. I agree. Eric's doing a great job over there. I will say this, that each one of you somehow pulled one off my list of points that I wanted to make. And I think that's a fantastic idea that thinks of it kind of maybe shows that we're all kind of rowing the boat in the same direction. We all have a concern that we're doing the right thing and making the right choices here. I wanted to at least very, to say at the very least that my reward, excuse me, my focus remains on a risk reward basis here. And that has to be a balance that I'm looking at. And whether it's this development, and I'm not just saying the stadium itself, because I'm not looking at it as a single point that the whole project itself generates durable long-term fiscal returns that translate into real usable revenue. And that's what I look at, because as I think we've had members of our audience, I see a few out there and it may have been at some of our public comment in the past, that we talk about building fire stations. I don't know if that's one that we bring up, but we can build fire stations, but we can't operate them. The only way we can operate fire stations is by building our ad valorem dollars and building our operational dollars. And so if we're going to look at those type of priorities, those core county priorities, we got to find ways to do it. And that's only going to come when we're not looking at assumptions anymore. We need real usable long-term and end user figures. So, and I think if it was as in Gillum, he would probably agree that the black box programs that you guys use to make these assumptions, whether it's Remy or Info or the other ones that you can't try to compare each other. You got to use the same tool to get the same thing done. So I think that's where a lot of the problems are coming in with the disparities there and with the assumptions. So I think with getting those under control, timing, execution, and some of the other things, we can get that and hopefully have a path to yes. But I'm still skeptical and still cautious about how I'm going to proceed. Thank you. Okay. In closing, I want to thank staff. They've been working tirelessly to get us to this point. As we've heard, we've still got a number of issues to go, but they've really done a heck of a job working night and day to get us here. So I want to personally thank them. I also want to thank the board members for each of your insightful and thoughtful comments today. I think that will help staff continue to work diligently in an effort to come to an agreement. And we'll see what transpires. So with that, we're adjourned.