Fate Of Baseball Stadium Thrown To Seattle Voters

Voters in King County will get to decide whether to raise the sales tax in order to build a new baseball stadium.

The King County Council voted 7-6 Friday to put the proposal on a Sept. 19 ballot, a move designed to keep the Seattle Mariners from leaving town when their lease with the county expires next year.

Under the package approved by council members, voters will be asked to increase the sales tax from 8.2 percent to 8.3 percent to fund about $410 million in bonds.

The tax increase would cost the average citizen about $9 per year.

Most of the money would go toward building a new retractable-roof ballpark, estimated to cost $260 million to $290 million.

The county contribution to the stadium would be capped at $240.8 million; the Mariners would chip in $45 million.

The rest of the money would pay off a $70 million outstanding repair bill on the Kingdome roof and about $100 million in Kingdome improvements sought by the Seahawks.

“This moves us into the future and it lets the voters be the umpire,” councilman Pete von Reichbauer said. “We’ve done the best we can do and now it’s time to move it on to the people and let them decide.”

The agreement would keep the Mariners in Seattle for the next 20 seasons. A location for the new facility has not been selected, but if the new stadium is sited on county-owned property in the immediate vicinity of the Kingdome, the county would agree to sell the property to a new sports authority for $1.

The Mariners owners had said they would sell or move the team rather than play in the Kingdome after the 1996 season unless there was an agreement to build a new stadium.

“We’re pleased and at least this is a way to go about (getting a new ballpark built,)” Mariners vice president Paul Isaki said after the council’s vote. “It’s a good sign.”

The vote came after 2 hours of testimony by advocates and opponents of the new stadium.

“If Seattle wants to be a world-class city, it’s important that we retain that big-league status,” said Virgil Fassio, former Seattle Post-Intelligencer publisher.