If the cautiously optimistic reports, whispered by some of those involved in a closed-door meeting Friday at a Winston-Salem law firm pan out, the soap opera surrounding the construction of a $48.7 million downtown ballpark will draw to a close Monday.
"I think we're very, very close," said Ralph Womble, the chairman of the Millennium Fund and thus one of the primary movers and shakers in town.
"Hopefully, the transaction will close and funds will be transferred by Monday," City Manager Lee Garrity said in an e-mail.
It's not a minute too soon.
Cutting long-overdue checks and ramping up construction will go a long way toward tamping down some of the rancor and cynicism that's sprouted like so many weeds in an unfinished outfield.
"It seems like we've heard that every two or three weeks for quite a while now, that we're very, very close," said Robert Clark, a member of the Winston-Salem City Council and a supporter of the stadium from the jump. "For whatever reason, it hasn't happened. This time, I think it's true."
Plot twists
To date, the deal has enjoyed many of the same trappings as Dallas, Dynasty and Melrose Place.
We've seen a public falling-out between business partners -- former brothers-in-law Billy Prim and Andrew "Flip" Filipowski -- over a messy divorce that took months to settle.
(Prim and Filipowski married sisters. Allegations of infidelity lodged in Filipowski's divorce file make daytime dramas seem like Happy Days. Think that caused any friction?)
Lines of credit dried up, the checks stopped coming and the last of the work crews wandered away from the stadium nearly a year ago.
Nobody seemed to have any answers.
Then the stew really hit the fan in June when a deal cooked up behind the scenes needed the council's public approval.
In order to finish, the city would need to take out a $12.7 million loan, front Prim's development company (Brookstown Development LLC) another $2 million from a federal grant and finance nearly $1 million for land purchases associated with surrounding development.
Brookstown Development would take out another $15 million in loans, and $3 million in private investment would also be injected. Construction should crank up by Aug. 1, officials said at the time.
A new show opens?
The last of the impediments were beaten into submission around a conference table Friday -- a private meeting that should be an end to the deal's revisions and renegotiations.
"The essence of the delay was that there were a lot of parties involved," Womble said. "We had the private investors, the city and county and four or five banks. Then the world came to an end and all the money disappeared."
The city kicking in an additional $15.7 million was predictable.
Less so was the injection of money from a group of mostly private investors whose $50,000 individual investments basically represent the cash value of future city and county tax incentives.
Other than Walter McDowell, a former top executive at Wachovia, most of the rest of the investors decided to remain anonymous rather than step up in a public show of confidence -- a decision viewed by many as curious.
"I think the reticence comes from having your name in the paper as an investor," McDowell said. "You get a deluge of phone calls from people who want you to be involved in their projects. My career was in public, so I was used to it."
The curtain will fall on one show Monday. Let's hope the next one looks more like Bob the Builder and less like Pee-wee's Playhouse.
ssexton@wsjournal.com
(336) 727-7481
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