Pensacola Blue Wahoos renegotiating stadium lease that could secure baseball for 10 years

Blue Wahoos Stadium needs $2 million in upgrades to land the team a long-term deal with the Miami Marlins — a move that would guarantee minor league baseball in Pensacola for the next decade — and the team's owner is looking to renegotiate the lease for the city-owned stadium to land that deal.

The 10-year lease for Blue Wahoos Stadium is set to expire this year, and it coincides with a historic shift in the structure of professional baseball's minor leagues.

Major League Baseball downsized the minor leagues last year, cutting 43 teams from its affiliation with the MLB, and is requiring its remaining 120 minor league teams to ensure their facilities meet updated MLB standards.

The Pensacola Blue Wahoos survived the purge but had their affiliation changed from the Minnesota Twins to the Miami Marlins.

Typical minor league affiliation contracts last between two and four years, but in January, Blue Wahoos owner Quint Studer said he hoped to land a 10-year deal with the Marlins.

To land the deal, the team's facility has to meet the requirements of both the MLB and the Marlins, including new LED stadium lights, artificial turf that matches the Marlins' field and upgraded practice and locker room facilities.

The Blue Wahoos paid the $250,000 to bring the stadium's locker room facilities up to MLB standards last year just before the outbreak of COVID-19 scrapped the 2020 season.

The remaining cost of the needed upgrades will be about $2 million, and the work needs to be underway before the start of the 2021 season in May to secure the 10-year deal, Studer said.

"I think they'll give us a little cushion if they know it's committed," Studer said.

To pay for the $2 million in upgrades, the city and the team considered different options, but eventually settled on having the team pay for the upgrades and take over the stadium's maintenance while also signing a 10-year lease extension for the stadium in which the team continues to pay $175,000 a year.

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In exchange, the city no longer will collect fees on tickets, parking, concessions revenues and other events that are meant to go into the Community Maritime Park fund.

"We would put the $2 million upfront, which we're fortunate that we can do that, personally," Studer said. "And then over the next so many years, the money that we used to pay the city for the ticket surcharge, we would just keep it, and then that money would be used to pay us back."

The ticket surcharge fee was intended to be used to fund the stadium's maintenance but has had to be used on the rest of the park as planned developments never materialized.

The city is hoping to change that with the West Main Master Plan, which aims to develop the remaining properties at Community Maritime Park. If developed, those properties would fund the maintenance of the park.

A city financial impact statement given to the Pensacola City Council stated that under the proposed agreement, the city would lose between $150,000 and $200,000 annually from the loss of the fees, which works out to $1.5 million to $2 million over the 10-year lease extension.

The Pensacola City Council was set to vote on the new lease this week, but Mayor Grover Robinson pulled the item from consideration during an agenda conference Monday evening, saying more time was needed before the vote.

Studer said he asked the mayor to hold off on a vote to give the City Council more time to get all of their questions answered about the proposed arrangement.

"I don't want the council to feel rushed," Studer said. "Now, would I've liked to start right now? Sure we would, because Major League Baseball wants to know our timeline. There's other cities wanting teams, but I erred on the side of prudence of making sure all the questions were answered."

While the item was pulled from the agenda, the council received a briefing on the proposal from Pensacola Chief Financial Officer Amy Lovoy. The biggest question was raise by Councilwoman Sherri Myers, who was supportive of the idea but wanted to know what kinds of chemicals were used to clean the artificial turf. She also wanted to know if the LED lights would have less light pollution than the current lights for neighbors of the stadium.

Robinson said he believes working out a deal that will keep the stadium operating with baseball in Pensacola is good for the city.

"Securing baseball for 10 years, which is the maximum time that you could do it, I think would be huge and should be a huge objective in what we do," Robinson said Monday. "... To me, there'll be nothing worse than having a stadium, which we're still responsible for all the maintenance, still responsible for everything, and we have no tenant, and it's providing no activity."

Jim Little can be reached at jwlittle@pnj.com and 850-208-9827.