In 2025, the Double-A Braves will spend $80 million to improve Golden Park as…….

Columbus pitched its bonds to investors on Tuesday, with a year to go and $80 million in work to undertake to bring Golden Park up to current Minor League Baseball standards. Columbus City Council authorised a $80 million bond sale on Tuesday to begin repairs at Golden Park, opening the path for the city to welcome an Atlanta Braves minor league club. Brasfield & Gorrie’s 1920s ballpark makeover is scheduled to be completed by April 2025, in time for the opening pitch of the Double-A Braves’ inaugural season in Columbus.

The squad will relocate from Pearl, Mississippi, just outside of Jackson, the state capital.

Selling bonds implies that the city borrows the $80 million and pays interest, similar to a home mortgage. Investment firms typically purchase bonds in the same way that they purchase stocks. Diamond Baseball Holdings, the Braves’ owner, agreed to lease Golden Park for 20 years, the same length of time the team stayed in Pearl. The $80 million in bonds issued to support the ballpark refurbishment will likewise endure 20 years. Financing will cost $4.1 million each year.

The total cost to taxpayers will be $82 million at the end of the lease period, when the Braves decide whether to stay or go.

In February, council opted to begin funding the park rehabilitation with approximately $2 million in sales tax revenue from an ongoing levy passed by voters in 2008 for infrastructure but mostly for public safety, which receives 70% of the revenue each year. For the first year, the sales tax funds will pay interest on the bonds, with no principle payment necessary. The city has yet to decide how it would pay the $4.1 million a year that remains. Raising property taxes was a possibility.

Before Tuesday night’s bond sale vote, Citywide Councillor Judy Thomas inquired about it. “There are some of us who will not vote for that,” she stated on boosting the millage rate. According to Deputy City Manager Pam Hodge, the city plans to spend more than $1.8 million in sales tax money to begin construction in fiscal year 2025, and the same sales tax income will be used for financing expenditures in the future.

However, the mayor and council cannot bound future city leaders to that vow. Mayor Skip Henderson was first elected in 2018, and his last four-year term ends in 2026. Council seats are up for election every four years.

Jon Pannell, a partner at Savannah legal firm Grey, Pannell and Woodward, and Doug Gebhardt of investment adviser Davenport & Company spoke before the council about the bond sale.

They stated Robert Baird & Co., better known as Baird, offered the best bargain out of six bidders for the bonds, underwriting them at a 5.01% annual interest rate. According to the announcement, the bond sale will end on April 9.

Columbus’ credit has been rated AA, so the bonds are regarded a safe investment that will pay off for financial institutions, money-market funds, and retail brokers, they said. They stated that the municipal bonds will not be free from state or federal taxes because they are related to the Braves’ private use of the stadium. Bonds that fund public capital projects such as schools or other government structures are normally tax-exempt.

Golden Park arose from a quick burst of construction: work men built the first stadium in two weeks in 1926 for the Columbus Foxes’ inaugural game, named after its manager, Jim Fox.

The park was named after Theodore Golden, owner of Golden’s Foundry and chairman of the city’s leisure board. At the time, the entire South Commons, more than 100 acres of public space along the Chattahoochee River south of downtown, was known as Golden Park. As part of their baseball effort, city leaders have opened up the property to private investment, with proponents predicting up to $350 million in residential, retail, and office space development, but others question such figures.