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City council OKs 2 issues
Tree ordinance, ballpark ownership are approved
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Published: July 21, 2009
Updated: 07/21/2009 01:05 am
The Winston-Salem City Council voted unanimously last night in favor of a restructured deal that would let the city own the new downtown baseball stadium outright at closing.
The council separately voted unanimously to approve an ordinance to protect trees during development, a measure four years in the making.
Under the new agreement, the city will lease the stadium to Brookstown Development Partners and Sports Menagerie Stadium for 25 years.
Initially, the city would have owned the stadium after a 25-year wait. The city will still receive the title to the land under the stadium, as was proposed in the original agreement.
Brookstown is owned by Billy Prim, the local entrepreneur who owns the Winston-Salem Dash, the Class-A minor-league team that will play in the new ballpark. Brookstown and Sports Menagerie will pay property taxes on the stadium and will be responsible for maintenance.
City Manager Lee Garrity said that owning the stadium from the beginning "does improve our position."
Parking at the stadium has been a concern for some downtown residents and business owners. Plans for the stadium call for a designated parking lot, but that lot could be affected if Prim's development company comes through on the second phase of development for the ballpark area. That phase calls for a complex of upscale shops, restaurants and office space to be built near the stadium.
Garrity said yesterday that, under the revised agreement, any changes to parking would need to be approved by the city council.
Construction work on the ballpark, which is being built at First Street and Peters Creek Parkway, has been stopped for months as Prim negotiated a buyout with his former partner and brother-in-law, dot-com entrepreneur Andrew "Flip" Filipowski. The council approved additional financial help for the stadium last month.
The city intends to borrow $12.7 million to buy the land under the stadium and help pay for construction costs to finish the ballpark.
The council also ended a four-year debate last night by approving a tree ordinance. The ordinance approved by the council was a compromise between conservationists and developers, and it calls for trees to be saved or planted on 10 percent of the land for developments smaller than five acres.
Representatives from the Winston-Salem Neighborhood Alliance, the Sierra Club, the Winston-Salem Regional Association of Realtors and the Homebuilders Association of Winston-Salem all said they support the ordinance approved by the council.
The ordinance has been a project of council member Dan Besse, who represents the Southwest Ward and who developed two compromise ordinances this spring and summer to help bridge the gap between developers and tree-preservationists.
"Concerned citizens worked on this for years," Besse said, "and I could tell from the turnout and the unanimity of support tonight that folks are very happy to see us finally take action."
The stadium deal and the tree ordinance were both approved by a 7-0 vote. Council member Nelson Malloy, who represents the North Ward, was absent.
In other business, the council:
□ Voted to send Winston-Salem police officers into public schools in the city as school resource officers.
□ Passed a resolution asking the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to restore full funding to the Housing Authority of Winston-Salem's section 8 housing-voucher program.
□ Passed a resolution opposing a public-lighting rate increase and a proposed new government-lighting rate by Duke Energy.
■ Laura Graff can be reached at 727-7279 or at lgraff@wsjournal.com.
Changing deal
A new deal approved by the Winston-Salem City Council restructures the city's deal with Billy Prim's development company, Brookstown Development Partners.
• The city will own the stadium immediately, rather than in 25 years.
• The city will borrow $12.7 million from First Tennessee Bank to buy the land under the stadium and to pay for hard construction costs. The city originally intended to borrow the money from BB&T.
• Brookstown Development Partners will provide a report to the city every two weeks that will detail expenditures. That report will be available to the public.
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