Metro and Sounds bicker with lease set to expire

Although the opportunity for reconciliation is still there, the Nashville Sounds and Metro could be on a course for a messy break-up.

Ever since the Sounds’ deal for a new downtown ballpark unraveled at the seams last year, the two sides haven’t been able to agree on much. First there was the ‘he-said, she-said’ gossip surrounding why the riverfront ballpark deal went south. Both Metro and the project’s developer, Struever Bros., Eccles and Rouse, pointed the finger at the ball club.

The bickering came to a roar earlier this year when the Sounds went around new Mayor Karl Dean’s office and filed a piece of state legislation to help fund a new ballpark. Dean rebuked the Sounds’ efforts and by way of lobbying from Metro legislative liaison Eddie Davidson managed to kill the team’s bill.

The latest Sounds-versus-Metro battlefront is the issue of Greer Stadium’s compliance with the Americans with Disability Act. Metro claims the Sounds are in default of their Greer lease because of about a dozen lingering ADA compliance issues.

In the meantime, the deadline for the Sounds to extend the lease has come and gone and uncertainty has settled in.

Metro has offered the Sounds a one-year lease extension at Greer, provided the team agrees to pay for 100 percent of the cost to get the 32-year-old stadium ADA compliant.

So far the Sounds, who have about 20 games left in their season, have not extended the lease, which expires at the end of the year.

“I don’t know what higher road to take,” Sounds Chief Operating Officer Glenn Yaeger said. “I’ve said to them, ‘We are willing to sign a lease, willing to contribute to ADA compliance.’

“They’re offering us a one-year lease and they’re asking us to make 100 percent of the ADA improvements. Now, play this out. Say in six months we’ve make all the ADA improvements and still have no long-term commitment. Then what happens?”

Asked point blank whether the Sounds would be playing in Nashville next season, Mayor Dean would not give a firm answer.

“I sure hope so,” Dean said. “They didn’t exercise their renewal of the lease. Long-term there will be baseball in Nashville. Nashville is a great baseball market. We have a long history of baseball in Nashville and we will continue to have baseball in Nashville. I’m a huge fan — it’s my favorite sport.

“But at the same time, I have an obligation to make sure the city’s protected and the taxpayers are protected. People who have leases with the city have to live up to the terms of the leases.”

ADA issues remain

Yaeger said the team doesn’t have a firm estimate for how much it will cost to move Greer into ADA compliance, but it’s apparent the Sounds don’t feel they should be on the hook for 100 percent of the bill.

The team invested $1 million of its own money into new free-standing locker rooms, which knocked two of the remaining issues off the ADA to-do list Metro submitted to the team in April.

Metro maintains the terms of the lease state the Sounds are responsible for bringing the stadium into ADA compliance.

“We want to be in Nashville, to play baseball in Nashville and to do what’s right to contribute our fair share to ADA compliance,” Yaeger said. “But if our lease expires and we are out of there, who’s responsible for getting the stadium ADA compliant then? Metro is.”

Yaeger points to the enlarged subsidy Metro gave the new Nashville Predators ownership group this year and the logic many officials used in supporting the deal. Yaeger said the Sounds are asking for much less than Metro gave to the new Predators owners.

The Sommet Center subsidy increased to $7.4 million under the agreement reached by Dean with the David Freeman-led group.

“They wanted to make sure [the Predators] could operate profitably, even when the Predators don’t have any facility-related capital costs,” Yaeger said. “What they’re willing to do is subsidize their business operation.

“And here all we’re asking for is to help us contribute to a facility, which they own.”

Owners need to put their own ‘skin in the game’

Although Dean insists the issue of getting every Metro facility, like Greer, into ADA compliance is important to him, it’s reasonable to believe he views the issue as a litmus test for how committed the Sounds are financially.

The previous stadium deal fell apart following bickering between the Sounds and Struever Brothers over predevelopment costs for the $40 million-plus ballpark. If the Sounds aren’t willing to foot the bill for ADA compliance, then Dean wonders what sort of partner they will be for a new stadium.

“Any agreement… in terms of building a new stadium will have to be a deal that makes sense for the citizens of Nashville and everyone involved will have to put some skin in the game,” Dean said.

Yaeger counters that the Sounds have put some of their own “skin in the game,” beginning with the $1 million upgrade to Greer this season. Yaeger estimated team owner Al Gordon has invested upwards of $5 million into the team’s operation, many of it coming in a stadium that has become progressively more rundown with each passing season.

League wants baseball to stay in Nashville

In an interview with The City Paper, Pacific Coast League President Branch Rickey Jr. sung the praises of Nashville as a Triple A baseball market and said it’s his hope the team and Metro can work out their differences.

Rickey pointed out it’s in the best interests of both sides in the short term for the Sounds to be playing in Greer. Metro would have an empty 32-year-old baseball stadium without the Sounds as tenants and the team would seemingly have nowhere else to go.

“The Pacific Coast League has an abiding, unflinching enthusiasm about having PCL baseball continue in Nashville,” Rickey said. “We’re unflinching in that. We’ll do everything we can to make sure that happens.”

Yaeger said the team’s goal is to negotiate new lease terms for Greer and then to revisit the issue of a new ballpark in Nashville.

But while the Sounds insist their top priority is to continue playing in Nashville, Dean has done nothing to guarantee that will happen. While he waxes poetic about the future of baseball in Nashville, the mayor remains hazy about whether that future includes the Sounds, or not.

“What I’ve asked from them, in terms of building a new stadium, would be that they come forward with a proposal that doesn’t start with us finding ways to give them tax breaks or government money,” Dean said. “[I’ve asked them to present a deal] that starts with them telling us what they’re willing to invest and what they envision. They have never done that.

“That being said, I look forward to a long, glorious [future] of baseball in Nashville. It’s one of those things that people are just going to have to speculate about.”