The numbers are staggering: $404 million for football, $297 million for baseball, $135 million for parking and road work and a $12 million cushion.
And that doesn't include interest on debt: an estimated $283 million for the Reds' new ballpark and $353 million for the Bengals' new home.
All those figures total nearly $1.5 billion.
Even so, a detailed financial analysis for Hamilton County showed commissioners Monday just how a half-cent on every dollar spent countywide can fund nearly three-quarters of the massive project.
"The reason we fought so hard to use the sales tax as a revenue stream was because of the lessons we learned from Arlington, Texas, and Denver, Colo.," said County Commissioner Bob Bedinghaus, who pushed the 1996 half-cent sales tax increase.
Both those cities used sales-tax increases to build stadiums, and both are retiring stadium debts early.
Hamilton County's analysis, presented by Mitchell Ziets of Public Financial Management Inc. in Philadelphia, showed the county can afford the project as long as the sales tax grows 2 percent each year.
That is viewed as conservative because the county's sales-tax revenues historically have grown by more than 5 percent each year. If that growth trend continues, the county probably could pay all the bills by 2019, pay much less in interest costs and retire the half-cent sales tax increase.
But Mr. Ziets warned the county doesn't have much money to spare if the tax grows by only 2 percent yearly.
"It appears to me you're really tapped out at 2 percent," he said.
That gave pause to Commissioner John Dowlin, who worries the county could end up paying millions to Cincinnati to use city land for a new Reds ballpark on the riverfront.
He accused the city of similar tactics during negotiations for a parcel of city-controlled land needed for the new Bengals stadium.
"Our experience with them is they will demand something for that property," he said.
Commission President Tom Neyer Jr. is more optimistic, saying he thinks the city and county can work cooperatively this time. "You're not going to spend better than a billion dollars without negotiations," he said. "But I believe future negotiations will be better than past."
County commission candidate Marilyn Hyland, who hopes to unseat Mr. Neyer in November, was amazed at how different the numbers were from the figures used during the 1996 sales tax campaign.
"How can they in good conscience even be talking about this when we voted for $544 million for stadiums and schools?" she said. "Talk about a totally obscene use of our trust and our money." The county's financing plan is a complicated combination of millions of dollars from various sources to pay for new homes for the Reds and Bengals in addition to new riverfront parking garages, road work and a 20-year commitment to Cincinnati Public Schools that could exceed $100 million.
The half-cent sales tax shoulders most of the load.
Expected to generate about $55 million in 1998, the tax increase is divided into two parts.
Thirty percent of the tax -- an estimated $16.5 million in 1998 -- goes for a property tax rebate that commissioners pledged as part of the campaign to increase the sales tax.
The remaining 70 percent of the revenues generated by the tax -- an estimated $38.5 million in 1998 -- is available for stadium construction and to meet the county's other obligations related to the stadium project.
For example, the county pledged during the 1996 campaign to make annual payments to Cincinnati Public Schools. That amount is widely understood to be $5 million a year for 20 years, but Mr. Ziets said it could be as high as $6.7 million a year for 20 years depending on how the school district and county calculate it.
The stadium portion of the sales tax is expected to pay for that, and Mr. Ziets' figures include $6.7 million a year for schools to make sure the county can cover it.
The county also will use the sales tax to make payments on the debt issued to build the football field and baseball park. Already, the county has issued $344.5 million in bonds to build the Bengals' new riverfront stadium and practice facilities.
While the football stadium and three practice fields amount to $286 million, the budget for the project also includes $70 million for land and $47 million for parking and road improvements.
The bonds will pay for most of that $404 million project total, and the sales tax revenues for the most part will pay off the bonds. The county expects to issue about $189 million in bonds to build the Reds new riverfront ballpark, and the county also is counting on having $26 million in cash from sales-tax collections to help pay for the ballpark.
The ballpark itself is expected to cost $255 million, once the price the county and team agreed to is adjusted for inflation. The county has budgeted another $42 million for site preparation, demolition and road work.
In addition to sales-tax revenues, the county is counting on parking revenues, $81 million from the state of Ohio, $25 million from the Bengals and $30 million from the Reds.
