County OK’d loan repayment plan for Nationwide

Franklin County’s Board of Commissioners two weeks ago signed off on a new repayment plan for a loan to Nationwide that allowed the corporation to be repaid for a 2012 loan that helped finance the public purchase of Nationwide Arena, officials said Tuesday.

The agenda for the Dec. 10 commissioners meeting described the resolution as “approving the issuance of revenue refunding bonds by the Franklin County Convention Facilities Authority, and other matters relating to the issuance of such bonds.” It does not mention it facilitated a new loan-repayment plan that the authority entered into with Nationwide in an October memorandum of understanding.

“We’ve always had an open mind about this, and when the (convention authority) came to us with an innovative plan to erase the mounting debt and save an estimated more than $35 million in future interest costs without sacrificing county general fund revenue or pledging additional casino revenue dollars, it was easy to support,” County Administrator Kenneth Wilson said in a written statement.

“I would not have been supportive of a new repayment plan that would have amended the structure of the loan in any way that adversely impacted the county’s general fund finances,” he said.

The Dispatch reported Tuesday that the city and the convention authority had quietly renegotiated the loan plan over the summer to allow Nationwide to be repaid $44.2 million that it lent the authority in 2012 to purchase the arena.

Because casino-tax revenue that backed the loan repayment never generated what was estimated at the time the deal was negotiated, Nationwide has never been repaid anything on the loan, and the city and county were not obligated to provide any additional funding.

Columbus, however, agreed in July to provide Nationwide to repay itself for the loan with money from Arena District tax increment financing (TIF) arrangements, which divert property taxes into special funds.

A memorandum of understanding signed Oct. 9 by the convention authority and Nationwide estimates the new special TIF funds created for the deal would raise $10.84 million by 2029, at which time the authority would pay Nationwide an additional lump-sum of $51.5 million to settle the debt.