The proposed location for a new Columbus Crew stadium would be on now-vacant 33-acre site bordered by the Olentangy River (bottom) and I-670 (left) and Route 315 [Doral Chenoweth III/ Dispatch file photo] ▲

Franklin County officials are disputing that they ever agreed to contribute $50 million to a new Crew SC stadium Downtown — the amount announced when the project was unveiled in December — even as they acknowledge they won't know the county's maximum contribution until bonds are priced.

At a briefing held at The Dispatch in early December, ahead of the stadium announcement, documents were circulated that listed the county's contribution at "$50 million." Alex Fischer, president and CEO of the Columbus Partnership, led the meeting. Representing the county were county Administrator Kenneth Wilson, Commissioner Kevin Boyce and commissioners spokesman Tyler Lowry.

Various city and team officials also attended, and no one questioned the numbers when they were reported both locally and nationally.

Those documents, released for publication Dec. 7, stated the public investment at $100 million, but a county draft of the "memorandum of understanding" that the parties were operating from, dated Dec. 5, shows it at $140 million, a figure that would be released publicly later in December.

County officials asked this week that the county's contribution be clarified, saying that its commitment has never deviated from $45 million, and officials didn't realize at that time that an incorrect figure was being reported, Lowry said.

The $45 million figure is an estimate of how much could be raised from a 30-year loan, secured through a bond issue, using a county contribution of $2.5 million a year in debt payments over 30 years, or $75 million in total.

"The amount of the county's annual commitment to the project has always been $2.5 million (annually), with a net present value of approximately $45 million," Lowry said Wednesday in an email. The new community authority to be created to oversee the stadium project "will use these funds to issue bonds to support the economic development costs of the project, and the amount realized from the sale of the bonds will depend on market conditions at the time of the sale."

Asked why numbers first unveiled in early December were different from those listed on the memorandum of understanding that existed then, Fischer replied: "I have no idea, other than we were trying to accomplish the impossible on an incredibly tight time frame, and details were fluid."

"All of the details were not finalized," said Robin Davis, a spokeswoman for Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther. "The MOU was a draft going through many iterations."

That Dec. 5 draft, however, ultimately turned out to match the public-financing component of the most recent agreement released last week, with the city contributing $50 million, the county $45 million, a new community authority $25 million and the state $20 million, totaling roughly 50 percent of the project's cost.

The economic development agreement leaves open how much the county will ultimately contribute, with $45 million being the minimum. If the county's $2.5 million a year for debt service raises more than $45 million, the excess would be contributed to the project, the agreement states.

"For clarity, if, for example, net proceeds are equal to $47,000,000, then the full amount of net proceeds will be contributed into the project fund account for use by" the team, the agreement says.

"The $45 million was an estimate based on market conditions at the time the deal was conceived," Lowry said this week. There is no new estimate based on current interest rates, which have dropped significantly since December. Lower interest payments mean the county could raise more with its $2.5 million a year.

"When we all met in early December 2018, we were working from the best numbers we had," Fischer said. "As the month unfolded, the numbers actually improved a bit, which is why the county number went down from $50 to $45 (million)."

bbush@dispatch.com

@ReporterBush