PolitifactVA checks in on Mayor Jones’ Redskin camp numbers

He gets a half-true.

March 4, 2014; 2:06 PM • by Richard Hayes

In his January 30th, State of the City Address Mayor Dwight Jones stated that the Redskin Training Camp had brought in $40 million dollars in new private investment.

Politifact Virginia doesn’t completely agree with the Mayor’s statement.

The mayor offered a solid estimate of the total construction costs. But he spoke in past tense, as if the money already has been spent. For the most part, it hasn’t.

No start dates have been established for two of the projects totaling $32.5 million: Bon Secours’ expansion of Richmond Community Hospital and its redevelopment of Westhampton School. Important contractual conditions first must be fulfilled.

The Redskins training facility, which opened last summer, was built with $10 million of city money. Richmond, at the end of March, will have recovered $1.82 million of that money through the sale of naming rights and the leasing of office space at the facility to Bon Secours. That number could grow to as much as $6.3 million over the next five years.

No doubt, the three projects have the potential to generate $40 million in private investment. But the mayor is counting the checks before they’ve been written. We rate his statement Half True.

Image: PolitiFact