PHOENIX — Maricopa County, Ariz.'s plan to sell the bond-financed Chase Field baseball stadium appears dead after the real estate company that had expressed interest in the deal said it is no longer interested.
The proposed deal would have seen the county sell the nearly twenty year-old home of Major League Baseball's Arizona Diamondbacks for at least $60 million.
The deal's collapse became apparent Monday with a letter from a law firm representing Stadium Real Estate Partners II, the would-be buyer. The letter, dated Nov. 21 and addressed to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and the Maricopa County Stadium District, described a toxic relationship with the Diamondbacks that ultimately caused the buyers to reconsider.
The Board of Supervisors voted in August to sign a letter of intent with the potential buyers after deciding it was unwilling to give the club another $65 million it had requested for repairs and renovations.
The disagreement resulted in an ugly exchange of letters between team leadership and a member of the board.
The Diamondbacks have cited as support an economic analysis that shows county taxpayers have already received a more than double return on their $238 million investment in the ballpark.
The letter of intent was potentially a way for the county and the team to each achieve their goals, but Milwaukee-based attorney Martin Greenberg's Monday letter appeared to quash that hope.
"As you are aware, despite numerous requests over the past three months, the Diamondbacks have refused to meet with us, absent my client's compliance with a number of unreasonable and rather dubious preconditions," Greenberg wrote.
The team refused a meeting without first seeing evidence of Stadium real Estate Partners II's "financial condition, funding sources, corporate structure, business plan, and other proprietary information," Greenberg continued.
The lawyer also said that the Diamondbacks have advanced an "exaggerated" $187 million price tag for stadium renovations, and that his client's "time and money is better spent working on transactions where its investment is welcomed and encouraged, not obstructed."
The Diamondbacks told local media that they requested from the prospective buyer nothing more than information which the team was contractually entitled to and which any participant in a high-value transaction would want to see as a matter of good practice.
The Diamondbacks had previously stated that they wanted to break their lease with the county, which runs through 2028, and seek a new venue elsewhere.
The county is free to explore the sale with other potential buyers, and the board has said previously that it hopes to be able to do so in order to keep the Diamondbacks where they are in downtown Phoenix.
