The Florida Times Union writes an excellent article on a proposed $63 Million upgrade of EverBankField.
Twenty Million for the upgrade would be paid by Jaguar's owner Shad Khan, and the balance by issuing debt, paid for with Hotel Bed Tax money.
In these times, as debt collection attorney's in Jacksonville, FL, we are always alert to major spending efforts on the part of government and industry, as they are bellwethers to consumer and business behavior.
The jury is out on the additional revenues that this upgrade might or might not create, but the city council at least has rational plans for how to deal with their debt.
Jacksonville assesses a 6 percent hotel tax. One-third of that tax goes to promote tourism, one-third is paying off debt for the original stadium construction, and the remaining one-third goes to a sports complex trust fund to finance improvements at the stadium, arena and baseball park.
The hotel bed tax generates about $5 million a year for that sports complex trust fund, and the debt for the stadium upgrades would use about $3 million per year.
State law will allow this use of the bed tax, but these taxes cannot go into the general fund for necessary expenses like fire, libraries, police and so forth.
With the economy always looking for more money, is good to see that cities are at least considering how to generate revenues to pay off debt. We will watch this development with interest.
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