A construction-management company formed by the owner of the Winston-Salem Dash would make $390,000 from construction of the new downtown baseball stadium, according to a line-by-line budget report made public by the city.
The company, Primo Properties, would earn a fee of 1 percent of the cost to build the ballpark, which is under construction at First Street and Peters Creek Parkway downtown. Primo Properties is owned by Billy Prim, the local entrepreneur who owns the baseball team.
City Manager Lee Garrity said that none of the city's money would go toward paying the Primo Properties fee.
"Our funds will only be going to … pay for the land and then for hard construction costs," Garrity said.
The Winston-Salem City Council agreed Wednesday to provide an additional $15.7 million to help build the stadium.
About $12.7 million of that money would come from a loan the city plans to take out from BB&T. City officials would send money from the loan to Prim's development company, Brookstown Development Partners, to help finish the ballpark. The company would get the money only after filing requests explaining what the money will be used for.
The council voted that the city's loan could be used only for "hard costs" -- to buy land for the stadium or to pay for actual construction work.
Other costs, such as consulting fees, attorney fees or architectural assessments are considered "soft costs" and cannot be paid for with money from the city's loan.
The Primo Properties fee, Garrity said, is a "soft cost."
Garrity said that the money being paid to Primo Properties would come either from a different loan taken out by Brookstown Development Partners or from the individual investors who have contributed to build the stadium.
Assistant City Manager Greg Turner, who has been working through the details of the city's deal with Prim's development company, said that the fee being paid to Prim's project management company is a standard construction fee.
"You typically have a project manager on any type of project," Turner said. "And 1 percent is a typical cost allocation for the company or consultant that provides that project management."
Samet Corp., the Greensboro general contractor that is building the stadium, has agreed that the stadium's cost will not change. Actual construction work on the stadium will cost about $32.1 million. The total cost of the stadium, including "soft costs" and furnishings supplied by Prim's development company, is about $40.7 million.
Prim's development company is paying about $3.5 million for such things as a digital scoreboard, audiovisual equipment and signs.
The soft costs total about $4.4 million.
"If you look at this category, what you'll see is architectural services, site-plan engineers, attorneys," Turner said. "These are all services provided by professionals to design or write plans for things to be built. They aren't actually building anything with these funds -- these are all for preparing paper."
The city's loan for hard construction costs does free up money for Brookstown Development Partners to use to pay soft costs. Garrity said that many of the soft costs already have been paid for and that the independent banks lending money to finish the stadium had examined each expense in detail.
"Without our money, they couldn't finish the project," Garrity said. "(The banks have) put this project through an incredible amount of review, so in their minds, every cost is legitimate, even the soft costs."
The city's agreement with Prim's company states that the company will repay the loan over 25 years, at which time the city will take ownership of the stadium.
The stadium will be home to the single-A Winston-Salem Dash, an affiliate of the Chicago White Sox. The team is playing this season at Wake Forest Baseball Park.
■ Laura Graff can be reached at 727-7279 or at lgraff@wsjournal.com.
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