The end of this month marks the most important milestone yet for the Bengals' $400.3 million stadium deal: life or death.
Bengals President and General Manager Mike Brown says he'll kill his deal with Hamilton County if the county and city don't work out their differences by Jan. 31.
Three viewpoints
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Hamilton County
The county negotiated a stadium deal with the Bengals to keep the team in town for the next generation. That's the mandate the county got from voters who passed a half-cent sales tax increase in 1996 to build new stadiums for the Bengals and Reds. The county needs 10 acres of city-controlled land to move forward with the stadium project.
Bengals
Bengals negotiators fought for a lease that would generate far more money for the team than Cinergy Field does. The Bengals also wanted a say in the kinds of businesses that locate around the new football stadium, which the county views as the anchor for other riverfront development.
City of Cincinnati
City officials don't care as much about the stadium as all the other development on the riverfront. The city wants the football stadium to serve as the riverfront's anchor. But city officials are more concerned about being able to develop the riverfront as they see fit without having to involve the Bengals. The city won't transfer its 10 acres of land for the stadium until the city and county reach a riverfront development agreement. As part of that agreement, the city wants the county to contribute $14 million for the Fort Washington Way overhaul.
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It seems every time the project is moving ahead, another crisis surfaces that leaves the public wondering how taxpayers got in the middle of this mess and whether it will all be worth it.
But the football stadium deal has faced deadlines before and has always averted disaster.
Cincinnati City Councilman Dwight Tillery thinks that will again be the case.
''It's in the best interests of this region to get it done,'' Mr. Tillery said. ''And it will get done. I believe that.''
To make sense of what's happening now, here are some key questions and answers about how the stadium deal got to this point:
How did this whole stadium thing get started?
Mr. Brown has been saying for years that Riverfront Stadium - now called Cinergy Field - doesn't generate enough revenue for the football team to keep it competitive.
Without more revenues, the Bengals can't afford to pay high-priced players to field a winning team, he argues. The Reds say the same argument applies to baseball.
The city of Cincinnati and Bengals settled a long-running court battle in 1993 after Mr. Brown first threatened to move his team, and the city promised the Bengals work would begin on a new stadium by 2000.
As city, county and regional leaders were trying to work out a financing plan in 1995, Mr. Brown announced the Bengals were being courted by Baltimore to move there.
To keep the team in town, the city and Hamilton County agreed that the county would take over the stadium problems and build new homes for the Bengals and Reds if it could come up with the money.
Where's the money coming from to pay for the stadiums?
In 1994, Mayor Roxanne Qualls and Hamilton County Commissioner Guy Guckenberger convened a Regional Stadium Task Force with representatives from Northern Kentucky and Southwest Ohio. The thinking was that the Reds and Bengals benefit the whole region, not just Cincinnati, so the whole region should pay for those new homes.
The task force commissioned a study on how much two new stadiums would cost. But when it came time to pay for them, support faded. That's when Hamilton County Commissioner Bob Bedinghaus proposed a county sales tax increase to pay for the new stadiums.
After Mr. Bedinghaus made some changes to his sales tax plan, a citizens group gathered more than 88,000 signatures to place the issue on the ballot.
After a heated campaign, Hamilton County voters passed the sales tax increase, known as Issue 1, in March 1996 with 61 percent of the vote. That half-cent-on-the-dollar sales tax increase is being collected to build new homes for the Bengals and Reds and give county property owners a tax break.
Why did the Bengals deal get settled before the Reds?
Hamilton County officials stress that they started talking to both teams at the same time. They say Mr. Brown simply moved faster to get his deal done.
The county also says the Bengals had more leverage than the Reds at the negotiating table because NFL teams can move more easily than baseball teams can. From the time the Bengals first threatened to move in 1993 until the sales tax vote, four NFL teams had either moved or announced their intentions to do so.
Haven't the Bengals and the county already agreed to most things about a new stadium?
Yes. The team and the county signed a memorandum of understanding in September 1996 that spelled out the broad, financial terms of a stadium deal. On May 29, the two sides signed a detailed lease agreement. They hoped to break ground this month. Architects are busy preparing detailed drawings and the county is getting ready to issue $322.7 million in bonds.
So, why the hang-up now?
The city, after studying the lease for about a month, said it gave the team too much control over the riverfront. The county didn't think so, but agreed in November to rewrite a part of the deal to appease the city. Problem is, the city says the rewrite didn't address all the concerns.
What are the city and county fighting over?
The city controls about 10 acres of riverfront land that sits in the heart of the football stadium. The county needs that land to build the stadium.
The city has agreed to transfer the property, but city officials want the county to agree to a much broader riverfront development agreement. In particular, the city wants the county to pay for some riverfront infrastructure, including $14 million toward the city's major project, a $120.5 million overhaul of Fort Washington Way.
The city and county have been negotiating since July but haven't resolved the matter yet.
Why is Mr. Brown now saying he might kill his stadium deal with Hamilton County?
Mr. Brown says that if the city and county don't resolve their differences by Jan. 31, he'll kill the stadium deal - which he is allowed to do under the terms of a lease he signed with the county on May 29.
He says if the work on the stadium doesn't begin by Jan. 31, there's no way the stadium can be finished on time. And he argues that Hamilton County voters didn't vote to pay the team a bunch of late penalties while the Bengals continue to play in Cinergy Field.
What happens to the stadium tax if the Bengals deal dies?
That's unclear. County commissioners stipulated they would rescind the sales tax if they didn't have a signed lease with one of the teams by June 1, 1997. The county signed a lease with the Bengals May 29. But if Mr. Brown kills the deal at the end of this month, that could mean the death of the sales tax increase. Nobody knows for sure.
Why has the price for these stadiums changed so dramatically?
The Regional Stadium Task Force estimated it would cost about $544 million to build both new stadiums. A group that calls itself Citizens for Major League Sanity says the county commissioners should stick to that total.
But county and Bengals officials argue that the scope of the football stadium project changed dramatically. Instead of building the new stadium just west of the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge on land the county already owns, the city pushed the county to move the Bengals farther west.
City officials argued that would open up more riverfront land for other developments. County officials agreed but also say that move meant the county had to buy lots of land from private owners that increased the stadium price tag.
They also say the regional task force figures didn't include any inflationary increases and didn't include the cost of using union labor, which the county must do.
The Bengals stadium itself will cost an estimated $270 million, but that price doesn't include land, parking, three riverfront practice fields or demolition costs. Those other costs bring the estimated cost of the football stadium complex to $400.3 million.
The county and Reds haven't yet settled on a cost for the Reds new home, primarily because they don't know where it will be built and what it will look like.
Will there be enough tax money to pay for both?
The county says yes, even if the sales tax doesn't grow as much as it has historically.
An analysis by a local certified public accountant questioned whether the county would come up short in meeting its annual debt payments for both stadiums.
The county dismisses that analysis because it was done for an attorney who was fighting the county in court.
When does the tax expire?
There is no ''sunset'' provision on the tax. Commissioners have said they'll rescind the tax when the stadiums are paid off. During the sales tax campaign, they thought that would take a maximum of 20 years.
Now commissioners are talking about issuing 30-year bonds for the Bengals stadium. They stress that they hope to pay off the bonds early if sales tax growth permits.
What about the Reds?
The Reds don't yet have a deal with Hamilton County, but a Reds official sounded optimistic earlier this week.
Reds Managing Executive John Allen said ballpark talks are focusing on a transformation of Cinergy Field instead of a new ballpark.
It's unclear what a transformed stadium would look like. Mr. Allen said the discussions have generally included talk of adding luxury suites, club seats, wider concourses, a grass field, a new scoreboard, a Reds museum and a view of the Ohio River.
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