The Atlanta City Council late Monday voted to approve a funding plan for a new downtown Atlanta Falcons stadium, pushing the project over its biggest political hurdle, Ernie Suggs and Tim Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution report. The council voted 11-4 in favor of the use of city hotel-motel taxes to pay $200 million toward construction costs and potentially several times that toward costs of financing, maintaining and operating the stadium through 2050. The vote came three days after the Georgia World Congress Center Authority approved the deal and left one more vote — by the city of Atlanta’s economic development agency — needed for the stadium project to move forward. The board of Invest Atlanta, which would issue the bonds to fund the public portion of the construction cost, is expected to vote Tuesday. The Falcons expect to be playing in the new retractable roof venue in 2017, while their current home, the Georgia Dome, would be demolished. “The agreement we negotiated is one of the best (stadium deals) in America,†Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said after the council vote. “We’re going to build a terrific stadium,†Reed added. “… We have kept our team in downtown Atlanta. It’s a very big deal. Every major American city whose team moved to the suburbs took a significant financial hit. … We did the right thing today.†Source: The Redzone
