WASHINGTON - The three-member Maryland Board of Public Works yesterday unanimously approved the Maryland Stadium Authority's plan to sell $87.565 million in lease revenue bonds to finance construction of a new $200 million football stadium in Baltimore.
Alison Asti, general counsel to the Stadium Authority, said the authority plans to meet with rating agencies on Friday to discuss the bonds, which are scheduled to be sold competitively on April 23.
The authority board approved the bond documents on Tuesday for the stadium that is to be located next to Oriole Park at Camden Yards and will house the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League.
Maryland Treasurer Richard N. Dixon, a member of the Board of Public Works and a former state legislator, said that because the bonds are backed with the state's lease, rather than lottery or other revenue, he expects the bonds to be rated double-A.
Similar lease revenue bonds, totaling $137.55 million, issued in a negotiated sale by the authority in 1989 for the Orioles baseball stadium, were rated Aa by Moody's Investors Service and AA-minus by Standard & Poor's Corp.
Dixon called the stadium financing plan "an excellent deal for the state."
"This is a commitment we made in 1987," Dixon said. "It was a lucrative deal. We made it that way because we wanted to attract another NFL team to Baltimore."
In discussions of the financing plan last month, state Comptroller Louis L. Goldstein noted that the state has to "invest money to make money ... this will benefit the entire state."
Gov. Parris Glendening made backing for the Baltimore stadium and support for a new Washington Redskins stadium in Prince George's County the centerpieces of his legislative agenda in the General Assembly session that ended Monday.
The Baltimore Ravens team, which is owned by Art Modell and was formerly known as the Cleveland Browns, is scheduled to begin playing in Memorial Stadium this year and in the new stadium at Camden Yards in 1998.
The state's financing package includes the bonds, $15 million from an advance refunding of the bonds used to build the Orioles Park baseball stadium that became available April 1, $64 million in state lottery revenues, and $30 million in cash.
Modell has agreed to contribute $24 million toward the project over the next 30 years, although the schedule for his payments has not yet been developed.
Groundbreaking on the stadium is scheduled for May.
