12:06 PM
12/21/24
12/21/24
May 06, 2016
AHL Team Soaks Portland for $34M for Arena Renovations, Leaves After Two Years: The Portland (Maine) Pirates have decided to move to Springfield, Massachusetts, breaking a five-year lease on the taxpayer-funded Cross Insurance Arena after two years. Escape clauses built into the contract limit the team's payout for breaking the lease to $100,000, which is 0.3% of the cost of the renovations.
I realize it is only a minor-league team, and presumably no one thought of a sale possibility during the five-year period, but even a 10-percent payout -- $3.4 million -- might have been enough to make a prospective owner deal with the city during the process. City officials and taxpayers became an afterthought at $100,000.