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Mobile Council votes against funding for USA stadium


By Lawrence Specker lspecker@al.com


The city of Mobile will not provide $10 million in funding for an on-campus University of South Alabama stadium, following a City Council vote on Tuesday that ended more than a month and half of intense discussion.

Four council members voted against a Letter of Intent laying out a deal between the city and the university, and three voted for it. It was a decisive defeat, given that five votes would have been needed to approve it. Mayor Sandy Stimpson, who'd introduced the funding proposal in late June, described the decision as a failure on multiple fronts, one that is likely to haunt the city in years to come.

"It sends a message to the NFL that the City does not support the Senior Bowl," the mayor said in a statement released as the council vote was taken. "It leaves Ladd Stadium with zero funding to create a facility that meets the needs of the neighborhood and the four high school football teams that play there. It leaves the City with no plan to solve the $33 million maintenance issue."

Councilman C.J. Small, one of the "no" votes, delivered an equally pointed message to the mayor, one which played on an oft-stated Stimpson theme.

"It's critical for the city of Mobile to address its own pressing issues and projects for all citizens," said Small. "I had a couple of citizens come to me [who] stated, 'If the mayor would work on blight and crime as he does for the USA stadium, we would have the most safest, friendly-business city by 2020, but yet it looks like we're having the most deadly city by the year 2020.' Therefore my decision today will be nay."


USA already has begun site preparation work for the stadium, but USA President Tony Waldrop had previously told the council that city funding was essential to move forward with the project as planned and have it ready for the 2020 season.

A couple of hours after the vote, USA President Tony Waldrop and Athletics Director Joel Erdmann released a statement saying they were "disappointed by this setback," but also inspired by those who had shown support. They were appreciative of Stimpson's effort, they said, and thanked the council members who voted in favor of the proposal.

"USA's leadership is exploring all possible avenues of funding for the stadium, and we anticipate that we will continue to generate interest in the stadium among individuals and private organizations," said the statement from Waldrop and Erdmann. "The University is continuing with site preparation for the stadium, so that we will be ready to move forward with construction when we are able to identify the needed sources of funding support. We are committed to building an on-campus stadium for the Jaguars, and we will continue to keep the University community informed when we have additional news to share."

USA expects the on-campus stadium to cost between $70 million and $80 million. It had asked the city to commit to giving it $10 million over the next 20 years, to help with payments on the construction debt. The deal also provided that when the new stadium became operational and USA moved its games out of city-owned Ladd-Peebles Stadium, it would give the city $2.5 million to help repurpose Ladd. (USA also approached the Mobile County Commission, which opted to wait and see what the city did before considering a contribution of its own.)


Stimpson had pitched it as a money-saving proposition: For $10 million, the city would get access to a brand-new stadium surrounded by college-campus amenities, and over the same 20-year period it would escape $33 million in maintenance expenses for Ladd.

What's yalls thoughts on the "No" vote?

As much as I think that hosting bowl games out on a college campus in West Mobile is a terrible idea, I think the City had no choice but to vote "Yes". In an ideal world, I think the City/County should have been making plans for years now at all of their large facilities and found a dedicated revenue source for Ladd. Maybe have a developer tear down the Civic Center, build a new minor league ballpark as an anchor for new residential and retail, have the developer pay a yearly land lease there, and have that fund Ladd? Also, sell or lease the Hank Aaron land to a developer and use those funds for Ladd as well?