Duffy's Sports Grill server Amanda Evangelista (right), of Port St. Lucie, passes food to Pam Laminsky (left) as fellow Mets Booster Club members (from left) David Kane, Lorna Wehrenberg and Bob Wehrenberg enjoy their night Feb. 15 at the St. Lucie West restaurant near Tradition Field in Port St. Lucie. The booster club met at nearby Creative Catering before socializing in Duffy's "sports theater" room. "They're always in, they're awesome people," Evangelista said about the booster club. She added the restaurant and bar are often filled with Mets fans, especially during spring training. "They keep us alive every year." (XAVIER MASCARENAS/TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS)

Taxing tourists spares residents cost of spring training, minor league baseball facilities

By Lucas Daprile and George Andreassi of TCPalm

PORT ST. LUCIE — Former New Yorker Jeff Earl and his father Bill didn't know their bill at Motel 6 in Fort Pierce included a tourist tax to help pay for the New York Mets spring training complex.

But they like the idea.

"It's worth it," Jeff Earl said during the team's first public workout at Tradition Field.

"It's fantastic, the facility," Bill Earl said. "Isn't that the best way — let the tourists do it?"

Treasure Coast Newspapers spent six weeks researching how many tax dollars are spent annually on Tradition Field, home of New York Mets' spring training and two minor league teams in the summer.

An analysis of dozens of county financial records found St. Lucie County spends $2-to-3 million annually to help pay for the maintenance and operation of the facility. The investigation found most of the money comes from the 5 percent tourist development tax, also known as the bed tax, which is added to the bills of hotels, motels, recreational vehicle parks, seasonal rentals and other lodging in the county. The maximum tourist tax allowed in Florida is 6 percent.

County officials say their investment in the stadium brings in more than they spend, but economists are split on just how much of that money comes back to the county and stays there.

For St. Lucie West businesses, there was no such ambiguity: the increase in customers is good for the bottom line.

"We have a tremendous increase in our business," said Chris Egan, general manager of Sheraton PGA Vacation Resort. "We have guests sitting in the lobby with their jerseys on waiting for the game, and the resort is so close to the Mets stadium that we see a significant increase during spring training."

BASEBALL SUBSIDIZED

For every nickel the county collects in bed tax, about 3.67 cents goes to operating the stadium and paying the debt for renovations.

St. Lucie County spent relatively little property tax money on the baseball complex — about $166,000 in 2015, less than $5,000 in 2014, less than $8,500 in 2013 and none in 2012 and 2011, the analysis found.

The state chips in about $263,000 per year from sales tax revenue to help the county pay for renovations and debt service.

Port St. Lucie neither provides nor receives money in conjunction with the baseball complex. City police handle arrests at the complex, but there has only been one in the past five years.

A Mets subsidiary — Sterling Facility Services — provides more than $1 million annually for the baseball complex, including a share of the proceeds from ticket sales, concessions, parking fees, souvenirs and advertising income from Tradition Field.

BED TAX

County voters in 1984 approved a 2 percent bed tax to help finance the construction of the baseball complex and pay for its operations. Thomas J. White, the initial developer of St. Lucie West, covered most of the construction costs and later donated the land and the stadium to the county.

The complex opened in 1988. It includes Tradition Field — a stadium that seats more than 7,000 people — seven practice fields, several batting cages and multiple pitchers mounds.

County commissioners added 1 percent to the bed tax in 1997 and 2/3 of a cent in 2003 to finance renovations to the baseball complex for a total of 3-2/3 cents.

In 2012, St. Lucie County completed about $3 million in renovations to the complex. County officially recently identified an additional $2.8 million in maintenance and repairs that need to be undertaken during the next five years.

The bed tax money not used for the baseball complex goes to promote and advertise tourism in St. Lucie County and pay for new facilities that promote tourism at the county fairgrounds and north of Midway Road.

It's fair for a large portion of the St. Lucie County's tourist development tax to go for the operation and maintenance of the baseball complex because the facility is a tourist attraction, said several visitors and city homeowners said.

"I have no problem with that at all," said Ed Boncek, a city homeowner and Mets fan. "I'm sure it doesn't deter anybody from staying here and actually it's better than having us pay."

State law allows bed tax money to be used to finance the construction, reconstruction or renovation of spring training facilities. Palm Beach County anted up $5 million in bed tax money for a new baseball complex set to open in 2017 in West Palm Beach for the Houston Astros and Washington Nationals.

"Now I understand people get a little confused ... by the fact that we're using tax money to help subsidize a private enterprise, but that's what you have to do to be an economically viable area and to support the residents," said Terissa Aronson, the executive director of St. Lucie County Chamber of Commerce and board member of the county's Tourist Development Council.

Indian River County earmarks 1 cent of its bed tax money to pay for Dodgertown debt service, and the other 3 cents for beach maintenance and tourist development activities. Martin County dedicates some of its bed tax money to beach and inlet maintenance. They also use bed tax money to pay for arts and cultural activities and to promote the county as a tourist destination. St. Lucie County doesn't spend any of its bed tax money on beaches.

Among the other things state law allows bed tax money to be spend on are building or maintaining convention centers, financing park improvements and cleanups and promoting zoos, aquariums, museums and other cultural facilities operated by nonprofit groups.

St. Lucie County Commissioner Paula Lewis, who was first elected in 1996, said the commission has not discussed reallocating any tourist tax money because the system works well. And the tourist tax is paid mainly by visitors, not county residents, Lewis said.

"I've never had someone complain about the fact that we help support the stadium," Lewis said.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

St. Lucie County officials agreed the Mets are worth the investment because the high profile franchise attracts national publicity, shows the county's beauty to the massive New York tourist market and generates an estimated $35.6 million in economic activity per year, according to a 2013 study from the University of Michigan Center for Sport Management.

"When you talk about ... all the businesses that are affected by this $3 million investment that we do, (it's) 10 times the return on what we spend out," said St. Lucie County Commissioner Kim Johnson.

But while county officials share a consensus of the team's value, economists do not.

The county-commissioned University of Michigan study was based on a 2009 state-sanctioned report where economist Mark Bonn and his company interviewed 154 attendees at Mets games about their spending.

Bonn maintains his methods used "the best way to obtain a pure, randomized study."

But some critics say there is no economic impact from spring training. These critics — such as Victor Matheson, a professor of economics at College of the Holy Cross — say spring training crowds out other visitors who would already be there and local dollars spent at Tradition Field often leave the local economy. They back this up by looking at government data: they see no major increase in sales tax data associated with spring training. In 2013, Treasure Coast Newspapers did its own analysis of sales tax revenue and found counties with spring training had no economic advantage over other counties.

"Spring training is great, but like so many things in life, it's all about what you have to pay to get it," Matheson said. "It's almost certainly the case that that sort of investment tends to be a pretty poor investment for cities that make it."

Florida TaxWatch, a nonprofit, nonpartisan government watchdog group, is sticking with more middle-of-the-road estimate from an Office of Economic and Demographic Research study published in January 2015. It estimated for every dollar of state money invested in retaining spring training teams, the state receives 11 cents in tax revenue. The study did not factor in local contributions.

TaxWatch held a news conference in Tallahassee on Feb. 18 calling for lawmakers to invest in economic incentive programs, but the poor return on state investment in spring training led TaxWatch President and CEO Dominic Calabro to say, "We're losing money. ... We would seriously reconsider money spent there and say 'Let's put it where it does have a rate of return, because we don't like to waste any money.' "