D.C. Tries To Cut Baseball Price Tag

$436 Million Stadium Called Too Expensive; New Plan in Works

Frederic V. Malek, who leads a D.C. ownership group, has praised efforts to cut stadium costs.

Mayor Anthony A. Williams says he is attempting to sweeten the city's financial offer to Major League Baseball without increasing the cost to taxpayers as baseball continues its search for a new home for the Montreal Expos.

The mayor and other officials have concluded that the $339 million stadium financing package that they offered last year failed in part because it required too large an initial investment from the group that buys the team, say city officials. Baseball officials have made clear that they favor a stadium built entirely by taxpayers.

Talks underway between senior administration officials and the city's preferred ownership group have focused on cutting the proposed cost of a stadium, from about $436 million to less than $400 million, say sources familiar with the developing plan. They spoke only on the condition that they not be named. In addition, the sources said, the new plan would allow the contribution from the team's owners to be made gradually, in the form of rent payments or an additional surcharge on tickets.

The goal, city officials said, is making the owners' initial cost as low as possible, allowing them to pay more for the Expos franchise, which is owned jointly by the league's 29 other teams.

"Without increasing the public's outright expenditure . . . you can still build a very attractive stadium with a more attractive range [of investment] for the owners," Williams said in an interview last week. "I'm not for putting additional burden on the taxpayers, but if we can put a better deal together . . . then I'm all in favor of that."

He declined to elaborate on the details of a new financial offer or to put a timetable on when it will be completed.

The city has designated the Washington Baseball Club, led by financier Frederic V. Malek, as its preferred ownership group. Malek last week praised the city's efforts to improve its offer. "In the past several weeks, I feel that the city has made great progress. In working together with the city, I have never sensed a greater spirit of cooperation," he said. "They've been very much on point and spending a great deal of time on this."

Baseball officials have recently resumed their effort to sell the Expos after suspending it last summer.

In an interview Friday, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig said that baseball's relocation committee is charged with finding a new owner for the Expos this year, with a decision due by the All-Star break in July. "That's what we hope; that's what we're shooting for."

Baseball officials made similar comments last year.

Among the other bidders are Northern Virginia; Las Vegas; Portland, Ore.; the Hampton Roads section of Virginia and Monterrey, Mexico. A baseball official, two Expos players and an official from the players' union visited Monterrey last week.

Northern Virginia officials have struggled to find a viable stadium site, but they too are considering updating their financial proposal, said Gabe Paul, executive director of the Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority.

Of the effort by D.C. officials, Paul said: "That's not sweetening the deal. That's just looking at a different structure."

The mayor's proposal last year relied on new taxes on business receipts, players' salaries and stadium revenue such as ticket and food sales. It would have directed $275 million to stadium construction and $15 million to renovating Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium as an interim home for the team. The rest of the money would have been for borrowing costs.