Stadium Specs

Tons of details about this moment's possible stadium agreement are popping to light, this time through these two articles in Miami Today.

Some quick bites (Most capitilizations of Team, City and County are mine):

The Team 'would keep proceeds from the (ballpark's) naming rights'.

The Team now 'would be bound to pay costs "that exceed the stadium project budget" of $525 million' and 'would be required to set aside $20 million for cost overruns and any claims that resulted from building the stadium.'

The County and City 'would be bound to pay "for any incremental cost to the baseball stadium that may result from delays caused by it or from its failure to meet" certain deadlines' - one deadline mentioned would be 'if Miami (the City) failed to raze the Orange Bowl and remove debris by March 31.'

The Team has a deadline - April 30 - 'to sign a "non-relocation agreement" with the County, assuring that the team stays in Miami for 30 years or until the city and county bonds used to build the stadium are paid.'

The City, after paying to demolish the OB, must 'turn over the deed to the land to the County by May 31.'

'Within six months of the deal, the County or the City would provide the Marlins with at least 3,000 square feet of office space within 2 miles of the stadium "that is suitable" for the team to use as its marketing office'. (Guess the Marlins En Miami store ain't big enough.)

'The County and the City would pay for infrastructure costs needed for the new stadium.'

The Team 'must abide by county ordinance goals of 10% for small business participation in planning and design' and 'the construction manager (is) to be a Florida contractor'.

The Team wants '$1.7 million in waivers from city and county impact fees.'

The State amazingly is still requested to approve a sales tax exemption, this time in the purchase of stadium construction materials.

But in this agreement, the State doesn't seem to be crucial - if 'waivers for sales taxes and impact fees are not approved, construction costs would increase by $6.1 million and would be borne by the Team.'

The County would own the stadium, but 'the City and County would have the right to use the facility for (only) 12 community events each year', and even with that 'the Team could "reject any proposed community event".

Fighting against this is local rich guy Norman Braman, who has filed his first of probably several legal challenges against the plan that underpins the stadium deal.

IGNORANT-QUESTIONS: Once the Orange Bowl is razed, isn't there some sort of requirement that an archealogical survey be done of the site before building can begin? If so, and some Miami-Circle-like artifact is discovered there, then what next?