Despite pleas from constituents to slow down the train, the Atlanta City Council voted 11-4 Monday evening to approve a funding plan for a new $1 billion football stadium in downtown Atlanta.
The council vote, which did not go through the normal multi-week committee process, was pushed through on a super fast track on Monday after a six-hour meeting of the whole council.
That approval followed Friday’s unanimous vote by the Georgia World Congress Center Authority that endorsed the new retractable roof stadium for the Atlanta Falcons.
Only one more governmental body is needed to approve the deal — the board of Invest Atlanta — which is scheduled to vote on the project at a meeting Tuesday morning — making it the third vote in as many business days.
Besides the funding directly related to the stadium, the agreement calls for the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation and Invest Atlanta to contribute $15 million each toward redevelopment of the Vine City, English Avenue and Castleberry Hill communities.
The Falcons agreed to pay up to $50 million for related infrastructure costs and $20 million to acquire additional property outside of the stadium footprint needed to realign Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.
The Falcons would start playing football in the new stadium in 2017.
At the meeting, the council also passed an amendment calling for another $20 million in contingency funds that could go to stadium-related infrastructure costs if there were to be a surplus.
“We are grateful for the council’s vote of support today,” said Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank in a statement Monday evening. “The agreements approved today represent the fruits of more than two years of collaborative discussions leading to a solution that serves the best interests of all involved, including the neighborhoods surrounding the stadium.”
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