Jags stadium renovation includes ‘sports district,’ special taxing district

JACKSONVILLE, Fla — The Jaguars continue to host community huddles across Jacksonville to tout plans for a revitalized stadium that costs an estimated $2 billion in total.

Approximately $600 million would go towards a “sports district” in the areas surrounding TIAA Bank Field.

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“What will be added to that is a mixed-use development. It will include housing, retail, and entertainment,” Mark Lamping, president of the Jaguars, said. “All the types of things you will need to have a 365 neighborhood where people live, work, and maybe come visit.”

According to a Memorandum of Understanding, it would also “establish a special taxing district to include all new development outside the stadium in the Sports Complex. The proceeds to be allocated to future stadium capital needs and public debt service.”

Lamping said the structure of the tax would have to be negotiated by the City under Mayor-elect Donna Deegan.

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“The scale of that [Sports District] will be influenced by a couple of things. Does the University of Florida make a decision to go to the Fairgrounds property? And number two, what’s our agreement with the city?” Lamping said.

An economics professor at Kennesaw State University, who has decades of looking into sports deals, said it’s not what it appears on the surface.

“That spending that we see in and around stadiums is largely just local spending that is reallocated from other spending in the community,” he said. “Before that tax revenue that was being spent elsewhere, it might have been funding roads or public safety. And now it’s going to be funding the stadium.”

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Fans at Monday’s “community huddle” said it’s a must. “I think we need it. You look at Nashville and what they’ve built; Indianapolis and what they’ve built,” said Tracy Winfree. “You need revenue 365 days a year. And you need revenue outside the bowl itself.”

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