Forsyth County commissioners hopefully will take a vote tonight on $12.5 million in incentives for Winston-Salem’s proposed downtown ballpark.
Some opponents want the county to delay its vote, but Commissioner Debra Conrad says they’ve been around the bases quite a few times with Warthogs owner Billy Prim, trying to get it through his head that the county wants nothing to do with the stadium:
Prim originally wanted the county to give as much as $14 million in tax incentives to help pay for the project. The incentives would have been worth up to 100 percent of the development’s property taxes from the previous year.
Prim also wanted the county to take over eventual ownership of the stadium along with the city of Winston-Salem.
Under the current deal, the county will provide tax incentives only for the mixed-use development. No payment from the county would exceed 55 percent of the previous year’s property taxes.
The county also refused to take over ownership of the stadium, leaving the city as the eventual owner.
Conrad said that negotiations were slow because Prim did not understand that the county would have nothing to do with the stadium itself.
“That’s what took so long,” she said. “It kept going round and round and round about that point.”
So it’s obvious both Prim and the county don’t see much value in a 25-year-old stadium. You’ve got to wnoder why the city didn’t see it, too.
