A committee led by Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow is “likely to sign off on a 40-year lease” for the city’s WNBA team that would allow the Tempo to “pay $1 a year for a parcel of land” on which to build a practice facility that the city may value at $10M or more, according to Justin Holmes of the TORONTO SUN. A report recommends the Tempo to “be given a city-owned surface parking lot” for “the creation of the basketball facility and an associated public park as an ‘in-kind consideration’” that justifies leasing that land for four decades for just $1 per year. In the fifth year of the lease, the expansion WNBA team “would be expected to make a single lump sum payment of $2 million, or begin making 35 annual payments of $100,000,” to help pay for city programming at the site. The report says that the Tempo would “build a 60,000-sq.-ft practice facility, as well as a park ‘at no capital cost to the city, including outdoor basketball courts.’” Reports have “pegged the cost of that facility” at $100M (TORONTO SUN, 7/16).
Tempo eye 40-year lease deal for practice facility
