Who could have seen that coming? Final vote gives the official green light to the Atlanta Braves to break ground and begin construction on their future Spring Training facility in Sarasota, Florida; with an estimated cost 33% higher than originally expected
I can’t cross-reference on the fly like I used to because another shocker of the century, my site is still down, but I’m pretty sure that when the Braves originally claimed an estimated price tag of $75M for their new Spring Training digs, I immediately stated that the actual price tag should be somewhere in the neighborhood of like $120M, because that’s just how sporting venues work; they estimate low to make it not sound completely terrible, miss the mark entirely, but proceed anyway, and leave the egregious amounts of difference up to taxpayers to make up.
“The project now carries a price tag of $100.56 million, according to financing documents provided to North Port commissioners, up from the previous estimate of $75 million to $80 million.”
Yeah, that’s not a surprise at all. I’ll be more surprised if these numbers don’t manage to crawl and creep up closer to the $120M that I had estimated, because lord knows if the Braves are good at one thing at all, it’s usurping funds out of unsuspecting taxpayers and wasting it on shit that benefits only them and gives nothing back to those it’s coming from.