PawSox stadium plans reach dead end

Providence — Plans for a new Pawtucket Red Sox stadium reached a dead end Tuesday at the Rhode Island State House.

Leaders of the Democratic-controlled legislature are blocking any consideration of the team’s request for a $23 million state investment to help build a downtown Pawtucket ballpark.

Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, a North Providence Democrat, told reporters Tuesday that it is too late in the legislative session to consider spending money on a baseball team when no one has seen the details and “we have bigger fish to fry, namely the budget.”

Pawtucket Mayor Donald Grebien had been working with the Triple A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox to file the stadium financing legislation this week.

The Democratic mayor and PawSox Chairman Larry Lucchino have been the leaders in pitching the $83 million project, which would include team and city investments. They have touted it as a much better deal for taxpayers than a 2015 proposal for a Providence ballpark.

Democratic state Sen. Donna Nesselbush, whose Pawtucket district includes the proposed downtown stadium site, called it a “really exciting proposal” and said legislators will “have to do our due diligence and really dive in.”

But with lawmakers struggling to patch revenue shortfalls as they write a budget for the next fiscal year that begins in July, top leaders said it was too late for that due diligence.

“I think there’s a lot of consternation, especially when we have a deficit,” Ruggerio said. “We’re going to have to make some tough choices on that, and I know some people aren’t keen about giving money to millionaires.”

In the General Assembly’s other chamber, Democratic House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, of Cranston, said he wouldn’t let the House take it up unless Gov. Gina Raimondo, a fellow Democrat, introduced the legislation herself with “her endorsement and her stamp of approval.”