COLUMBUS – The Columbus Board of Education voted unanimously on Monday to support a 100 percent property-tax exemption for Nationwide Arena in return for $586,000 a year and the use of the facility for high school graduations.
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The school board voted 7-0 at a special meeting to accept the deal offered by the Franklin County Convention Facilities Authority, which was staring at a potential $4 million-a-year-tax bill starting in January 2017 without a new law specifically exempting the arena, similar to those granted to more than a dozen other publicly owned sports centers around Ohio.
Under the $143 million value that the Franklin County auditor places on the structure, the school district would have been entitled to just under $3 million a year, and other taxing agencies would split the remainder.
But Board President Gary Baker said the current property value would be challenged and might not survive appeal, so the district took the flat rate that was negotiated over the past couple months to make the district as whole as possible. Columbus Board of Education member Mary Jo Hudson said that it was important that the district have a deal in place before the legislature takes up the issue so that the district wouldn’t end up with nothing.
“It assures us of a half a million (dollars) a year,” which would begin being paid in 2017, Hudson said. If the district had opposed the deal, it would have launched a “pretty big dispute about valuation of the arena,” she said.
The district also agreed to support the convention authority’s efforts with state lawmakers on a proposal for a permanent tax exemption for the arena.