Beyond Washington, Most Teams Cover Stadium Overruns

D.C. Auditor Deborah K. Nichols estimated costs for the District's ballpark could go up by 40 percent, based on experiences with sports stadiums across the country. At that rate, potential overruns would far outstrip the $43 million the District has built into its budget for contingencies.

"The question regarding the source of funds for the commission to pay for any cost overruns has not been answered," Nichols wrote in an analysis for the council.

Tuohey said the city has taken steps to offset overruns, including setting price caps with contractors.

"We believe that we have carefully planned a program that will be done on time and within the budget," he said.

But some council members are skeptical.

"The cost overruns is the heart of the issue," said Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), a critic of the project. "In the final analysis, we have no idea what the final cost is going to be, and we're responsible for every nickel. It's a blank check."

Hamilton County, Ohio, learned a bitter lesson when it paid $51 million in overruns building the Cincinnati Bengals' $459 million Paul Brown Stadium. By agreement with the team, which financed 5 percent, the county was responsible for all overruns, said Eric Stuckey, interim county administrator.

Reasons for the spiraling costs included increases in land valuations as community officials debated site locations. A similar situation in the District has caused its land acquisition estimates to rise from $65 million to $98 million.

The delay in choosing a location forced Hamilton officials to step up the construction schedule, causing labor and other prices to go up, Stuckey said.

The county had signed a "guaranteed maximum price" clause with the contractors, but an auditor hired by the county found it was liable for overruns because the project had begun with inadequate designs.

When Hamilton County built a new baseball stadium, which opened in 2003, the agreement was starkly different. This time the county put a cap of $280 million on public money, Stuckey said. Every dollar above that was the Cincinnati Reds' responsibility. The final cost came in at about $336 million, Stuckey said, largely on budget except for enhancements requested and paid for by the team.

The story of the two stadiums was a lesson in bargaining power, Stuckey said. At the time the football deal was being negotiated, the Bengals' lease at Cinergy Field was nearly up, and the threat of the team relocating to a different city was real, Stuckey said. When the county negotiated the Reds' new stadium deal, the team had more than 10 years remaining on its lease at Cinergy.

"A lot of it had to do with leverage," Stuckey said. "And the Bengals, quite frankly, had a lot."

In Seattle's case, stadium officials knew they were building on a former tidal marsh that had been covered with landfill -- by itself too unstable for a major project in the seismically active Pacific Northwest. They also knew the soil had been contaminated from decades of driving timber pilings soaked in creosote, a potentially harmful wood preservative, into the marsh to build platforms.

Even so, the land held costly secrets. New pilings had to be driven deeper than expected -- an average of 90 feet -- to find bedrock. Crews removed 200,000 cubic yards of soil after determining the contamination was too extensive to sift out. And concrete costs were $22 million more than anticipated.

"Until you do the drilling and testing, it's hard to know exactly what you're going to end up with, and sadly there are often unpleasant surprises," said Rebecca Hale, the team's director of public information. "And not just with this project but with most any construction project."

The District won't have to deal with seismically unstable land, but the Anacostia waterfront site holds plenty of other uncertainties.

The 14 acres the District will need to acquire is home to an asphalt plant, a waste-transfer station and a Metrobus maintenance and vehicle yard. Until the District owns the land, it cannot do a complete study to determine what environmental hazards might be underneath it.

The District has started eminent domain proceedings against 16 owners. Although the process is not expected to slow construction, it could take years to resolve.

The Detroit-Wayne County Stadium Authority has yet to acquire about four of 30 parcels it took over through eminent domain to build the Detroit Tigers' Comerica Park, which opened in 2000.

The process added about $5 million to the land acquisition costs, which like all overruns were borne by the team, said Steven Collins, special counsel for the stadium authority.

"We limited our liability," Collins said.

Staff writer David Nakamura and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.