The Rays agreement was rewritten the day before the vote. Here’s my updated model.

Note: the amount of change in the document is beyond what I could safely evaluate in a couple of hours. One of those changes however goes directly to what I wrote in Sunday’s preview. I’m not going to rewrite that post, there’s a note linking here. But I want to be perfectly clear: this time, it’s not a correction or clarification. The language changed in a funding agreement the day before the vote. I’m providing updated numbers based on the changes in the language. I will leave it up the paid professionals at the city to explain what else has changed right before council votes on it in (checks watch) 14 hours.

On Wednesday afternoon, less than 24 hours before City Council are scheduled to vote on item 80, the City Clerk posted a memo from the City Attorney sent Council a with three substitute agreements to replace the ones published Friday. The memo says “negotiations have continued between the City, the County, and the owners/consultants for the Tampa Bay Rays.” To their credit, the city also posted a redline so you can see every change.

That doesn’t change it’s not the document that was by their own requirement posted by 5 PM Friday. It was part of the motion to put the item on the agenda. Not a placeholder, but “provided that it’s in Onbase by five o’clock tomorrow.” Setting that aside, the purpose of this is to accurately represent the same model with the new language. The goal is to demonstrate how much tax revenue would be generated from a 70 gross acre parcel at different levels of density developed at different paces.

What’s not included in the new agreement are any details about what is being proposed as far as any mixed-use development. I’ve read suggestions that there aren’t any obligations in the agreement to build any mixed-use development at all. So this has always been speculation to a degree. It could turn out to be 50 gross acres or they relegate the school to the same footprint as a couple of parking garages and build 90 gross acres of mixed-use. I went off the static little map they shared with the roll out; I also attended the presentation at HCC, so I settled on 70 acres.

But if you’re going to argue that the development is going to “pay back” the city, I want to accurately reflect what that might look like over 30 years. Maybe it does.

Exhibit E is the table that says how the property tax increment from the Stadium District gets divided between the city and county on one side and the Rays’ Community Development District (CDD) on the other. The tiers didn’t change: 70/30 under $350M in taxable value, 50/50 between $350M and $650M, 15/85 above $650M. What changed is how the tiers are applied.

Friday’s version:

The increment sharing percentages set forth above are applied based on the highest tier reached, so for example, once Taxable Assessed Value enters the second tier, the 50%/50% split set forth above applies from the first dollar of increment.

Wednesday’s version:

The increment sharing percentages set forth above are applied to each respective tier as provided in the increment dedication schedule. For example, the first Tier Schedule shall apply to the first $350 M in Taxable Assessed Value and the second Tier Schedule shall apply to the remaining Taxable Assessed Value above 350M and below 650M.

Friday’s version worked like a cliff. The moment the district crossed $650M, the city’s share of everything dropped to 15%. My tables showed the city’s annual check going down as the district got more valuable, and why I wrote that once the district hits $650M the bulk of the money goes to the CDD no matter what.

Wednesday’s version works like income tax brackets. The city and county keep 70% of the increment on the first $350M, 50% on the next $300M, and 15% on everything above that.

Here’s the same scenario I used Sunday, a 20-year build-out to Channelside density with 3% annual growth, under the updated version of Exhibit E.

20-year ramp at Channelside density, 3%/yr growth, both millages

Under Friday’s language I estimated at most the city would see $29 million in revenue. Under the new language the Channelside level development scenario is $57M.

In the scenario Council Member Bill Carlson suggested, more density and a faster ramp up.

10-year ramp at Water Street density, 3%/yr growth, both millages

Sunday I wrote that the best the city would see is $48M. Under Wednesday’s formula, it gets the city to $80M in nominal dollars around year 26, and $96M by year 30.

Year 1 is still whenever the first buildings hit the tax roll, 2030 give or take, so year 26 is the mid-2050s.