Pirates and SEA at odds over reimbursement

were reimbursed for less than a third of the $1.1 million they spent on a new outof-town scoreboard because the SEA felt that it involved a larger, more dynamic LED board than the wooden one with static advertising it replaced.

“It’s our determination that under the lease our responsibility would have been the cost of repairing, replacing what was there,” Ms. Conturo said.

Not satisfied with the level of reimbursement, the Pirates “intend to continue to pursue our rights under the lease and if that means continuing dialogue with SEA staff, we will do so. If we need to have a third party help us figure this out, we will do that,” Mr. Stroh said.

There is an arbitration process in the lease to resolve smaller matters. But at the same time, Mr. Stroh would not rule out possible court action.

“Certainly we’ve waited over a year to get to this point and we need to get resolution on the rest,” he said.

Mr. Hanson said the SEA is “open to talking to them about their concerns, about additional ways to generate revenue from the ballpark that would be able to be used for ballpark-based improvements.”

“We certainly are willing to continue to talk to them about resolving these issues,” he said.

The $2.6 million comes from a capital reserve fund set up to help maintain PNC Park. The fund, financed through a 5 percent surcharge on each Pirates ticket, contains $5.1 million. With the reimbursement, that will be reduced to about $2.5 million.

Each year, the Pirates get the first $1.5 million generated by the surcharge. The next $650,000 goes into the reserve fund. If there’s anything remaining, it also goes to the team.

The ball club does not believe there will be enough money in the reserve fund to cover repairs and improvements in the future. Mr. Stroh said the SEA is obligated to come up with the money for reimbursable repairs regardless of what’s left in the fund.

“I don’t think either side expects that the remaining money in the fund will get us through the end of the lease [in 2030]. That’s obviously a big part of where we need to go next and where we’ve been working for quite some time to try to find a solution,” he said.

But Ms. Conturo had a different assessment of the fund’s state.

“We believe that we have sufficient revenue to cover our obligations under the lease,” she said. “To the extent [the Pirates] want to expand what we would contribute to in any way, we would be certainly willing to look at possibilities of raising additional revenue with them,” she said.

Increasing the ticket surcharge, Mr. Hanson said, is “always an option” should additional money be needed.