The President of FC Cincinnati told Newsradio 700WLW that the incentives they are requesting for building a new stadium are "no different than what General Electric received" and the "kind of deal brought before city council on a routine basis." Jeff Berding called it a "traditional infrastructure deal" but research of other deals show this is anything but typical.
The biggest development deal to come up at Cincinnati City Hall this year was the $650 million expansion of Children's Hospital which was approved by Council in a 6-3 vote back in April. Children's did not request any assistance from the city for the project only a zoning change for the property it wanted to develop.
The other big development deal to come before Cincinnati City Council this year was for construction of a grocery store and apartments downtown. The city gave Kroger an $8.5 million grant from a downtown development fund to help with that project.
The largest incentive deal ever provided by the city came in 2014 when Cincinnati partnered with Hamilton County to attract the new General Electric Global Operations Center to the Banks. In that deal that received unanimous approval, the city and county agreed to provide $42 million in incentives to the company. The contribution from the city included giving up future tax revenue they would have received from the operation while the county agreed to discount the rate for parking in the Banks garage. No current tax dollars of any kind were included in the incentives.
The deal proposed for FC Cincinnati by the Mayor of Cincinnati does include city funds and diverts tax dollars unlike the GE deal. This proposal uses $7 million the city was paid for the sale of the Blue Ash Airport. It diverts $1.5 million every year from the hotel tax and uses nearly $10 million from taxes collected from development in the Oakley area. The rest of the funding from the city is made up by a jobs creation tax credit which is similar to the GE deal. Hamilton County will kick in another $15 million for construction of a parking garage more than double what the county did for General Electric.
A vote on the funding plan to help FC Cincinnati is set for next week by both Cincinnati City Council and the Board of Hamilton County Commissioners.