Charlotte City Council wants public input before they vote on providing funding to renovate Memorial Stadium.

At last night’s city council, Mayor Jennifer Roberts requested that a public hearing be placed on the books Jan. 27 at the Government Center at 4 p.m.

“I have been supportive all along of public input,” Roberts said. “We didn’t realize until very recently the short timeline, and the sort of sequence of events with [Mecklenburg] County. Knowing that we need 48 hours notice for a public meeting, I asked [City Manager Marcus Jones] today to go ahead and schedule us for Friday so that we could, on the city side—the county is getting their input today [at 3 p.m. at the Government Center]. We also want to get input. We also want to be as informed as possible. We want to hear from the public before making any final decisions involving that amount of public money.”

Following the hearing, the county would vote that evening, as several council members will be out of town following the meeting.

“The county is scheduled to vote Thursday,” Roberts said. “If their vote goes through, the city would need to vote after our public hearing on Friday, because we have a number of council members who will be out of town next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and the bid is due on [Jan. 31]. We would have to vote Friday evening.”

Leading the private side of this public-private collaboration is Speedway Motorsports Inc. President and CEO Marcus Smith. At present, the terms require $87.5 million for stadium construction from the team and $43.75 million each from the city and county. Additionally, the plan requires the team remain at Memorial for at least 25 years.

“The city’s funding would come entirely from tourism revenues, which are dedicated taxes on the tourism industry, that were approved by the tourism industry-hotels, rental cars,” Roberts said. “There are taxes on the tourism industry—often times people from out of town who are visiting — but they are exclusively dedicated to venues and events that are bringing tourists to Charlotte. Our portion would not include any taxpayer money that comes from property tax or sales tax — it comes from a dedicated portion of the sales tax that comes from rental cars, food and beverage and hotels, but it does not come from regular property tax. The county has a different perspective. They are funding theirs through property tax, through their capital program. They really do have choices between funding this or funding other county projects.”

MLS announced in December, 2016 that they would approve bids for two expansion clubs during the second and third quarter of 2017. They would join league play in 2020.

“The MLS sets the rules on when they are going to expand and how quickly they are going to ask for the proposals,” Roberts said. “They didn’t tell us until mid-December that it would be due [on Jan. 31]. We have been working since then — of course there were holidays in between, etc., but other cities have also had the constraints. Everybody is scrambling if they think it would really be good for economic development for the city, if they know they have a good fan base. We have [nine] other cities who are doing the same thing. You have to compete. You don’t want to miss an opportunity that might be a really good opportunity. You have to really explore it, and see where that fit might happen.”

In addition to considering Memorial Stadium, the public-private partnership also looked at sites like the former Eastland Mall in East Charlotte.

“Some of the time was also spent exploring Eastland as a possible location,” Roberts said. “That’s why the final deal didn’t come together for the city to even consider until this week, because they worked with a consultant and the MLS to really give Eastland a full review, because it is a site that city council wants to have some activity as soon as possible. We heard from numerous consultants and the MLS folks that it would just not be in the running if we proposed a site there. Our city would probably not be in the running, because they are looking for Uptown sites.”

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