Miami City Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones has tied her support of a new Florida Marlins ballpark to Miami-Dade County spending $500 million in her neighborhood. Now it looks like a special taxation district will yiled only $140 million, at the most. Will it be enough?
Miami City Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones has tied her support of a new Florida Marlins ballpark to Miami-Dade County spending $500 million in her neighborhood. Now it looks like a special taxation district will yiled only $140 million, at the most. Will it be enough?
Here’s the backstory. Spence-Jones has been pushing for $500 million in redevelopment funds for the area she represents, Overtown. She was recently on maternity leave from the Miami City Commission; at that time the city’s vote to partially fund a new Florida Marlins ballpark failed on a 2-2 tie.
She returned from maternity leave and announced her support of the new ballpark would be tied to the city and Miami-Dade County following through with a plan to expand a special taxation district. Yesterday the city indeed moved ahead with that expansion, but it won’t yield the $500 million Spence-Jones wanted — it is expected to yield $140 million or less.
And it’s also expected to yield a yes vote from Spence-Jones, although she’s not yet made that announcement, and there’s the chance the yes vote will come with a few conditions, like support for Marc Sarnoff’s proposals to share in naming-rights revenues and profits from the sale of a team. Still, after many weeks of bad news, Florida Marlins ballpark supporters may finally have a piece of good news as the Miami City Commission debates the matter next week.
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