Beyond Washington, Most Teams Cover Stadium Overruns

That $20 million makes baseball's contribution toward the total cost about 3 percent, or 12 percent with the rent the team will pay, which averages to about $6 million a year over the lease's life. District officials disagree on whether rent should be considered a contribution.

Since the D.C. Council approved a $535 million budget last December, stadium project estimates have risen in every major category -- buying land, building the stadium and paying for such infrastructure upgrades as new roads and an expansion of the Navy Yard Metro station.

Williams's initial estimate for the stadium project was $435 million. Of that, $244 million was for the ballpark structure and $65 million to buy land. That budget did not include infrastructure money.

But on Monday, Natwar M. Gandhi, the District's chief financial officer, said the ballpark alone would cost at least $315 million, in part because of higher-than-anticipated inflation on the costs of steel and other building materials. Furthermore, the architectural designs the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission received last summer were more ambitious and costly than anticipated when the budget was created two years ago, said Allen Y. Lew, the commission's chief executive.

Infrastructure costs are now projected to be an additional $36 million, which Williams said could be paid through a combination of private and federal funds.

Rising estimates are not unusual in stadium construction, given difficulty in predicting fluctuating material costs, interest rates and land prices. Initial estimates are often kept low to bolster political support, said Andrew Zimbalist, a sports economist with Smith College.

The early projection for Seattle's Safeco was $320 million when Washington state lawmakers approved that stadium in 1995. By the time bonds were issued to pay for it, the estimate had swelled to $417 million. The final cost to complete it was $514 million, said Mariners spokeswoman Rebecca Hale.

In examining overruns at other ballparks, The Post looked at the final estimate for the stadium and infrastructure at the time of groundbreaking or at the time bonds were issued to pay for it.

Gandhi has said he will not issue bonds until the council approves the lease. The council is scheduled to vote on the lease Tuesday.

The only other team in the analysis not required to pay overruns was the Milwaukee Brewers -- a stadium deal negotiated by then-Brewers owner Bud Selig, now baseball commissioner, who controlled where the Expos would be.

At the Nov. 9, 1996, groundbreaking for what is now Miller Park, the state still believed the project budget was within the $322 million lawmakers had approved -- $250 million for the stadium and $72 million for infrastructure -- according to a 2002 state audit. After numerous delays, including a crane accident that killed three ironworkers, the stadium was completed in 2001, and four years later a dispute over the final cost continues. The Miller Park Stadium District puts it at $392 million; the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau says $414 million.

Either way, the sting of the overruns was long-lasting. For years after it opened, former governor Tommy G. Thompson, who initially championed the stadium, wouldn't step foot in it, he told The Post last year.