OLYMPIA – Taxpayers would finance more than half the cost of a new NASCAR racetrack in Kitsap County under a financing plan released Wednesday.
The track, which would be built near the Bremerton airport, would cost about $345 million. It could seat more than 83,000 people, and would open in 2010.
Florida-based International Speedway Corp., the nation’s largest owner and operator of NASCAR racetracks, would pay $166 million for the project. The remaining $179 million would come from tax-financed bonds.
Grant Lynch, a company vice president, called the proposal “historic.”
“It’s the most balanced public-private partnership proposal for a stadium complex that’s ever been proposed to the state,” he said.
The racetrack plan still must earn the blessing of state legislators.
Sen. Margarita Prentice, D-Renton, chairwoman of the Senate Budget Committee, said she hasn’t sensed much support for the proposal from constituents or from other lawmakers.
“For us to even be seriously considering it, there would have to be a groundswell of support,” Prentice said. “We’re barely coming out of the economic doldrums, and we just need to be very careful about what we’re doing with what we’ve got.”
The company’s plan would create a new public stadium authority to issue bonds for the project. About $166 million in debt would be repaid by diverting a portion of state sales tax collections over 25 years. The remaining $13 million would come from a special admissions tax on the racetrack.
The company would commit to bringing two major racing events to the track annually for 25 years, working to make one of them a NASCAR Nextel Cup race.
State Treasurer Mike Murphy is a vocal critic, questioning the value of using public money to pay for a private enterprise. Murphy also has said he is unsure about projections for how much money the track would generate.
International Speedway officials, however, maintain the track could leave the state’s general fund with a $43 million cushion from new tax revenue over 25 years.
The company’s biggest commitment, Lynch said, is the company’s pledge of $166 million in stockholders’ money.
“We’re not going to do that if we can’t deliver on making the thing a success,” he said.
Skeptics also have questioned whether the Kitsap County location could handle race-day traffic. The company’s proposal says the new Tacoma Narrows bridge currently under construction and ferry service could help shuttle fans to the site, and proposed improvements to local surface roads would help as well.
Prentice, however, said she was skeptical of the rosy projections about traffic flow to the stadium. “Just the location for it presents an insurmountable obstacle, and I can’t believe they haven’t thought this through.”
Wednesday’s announcement followed an abandoned bid in 2004 to build a NASCAR track along I-5 near Marysville. Under that plan, the company pledged to spend $50 million in exchange for $200 million in public financing.
Local leaders withdrew from negotiations in November 2004, saying the project posed too great a financial risk for taxpayers.
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