Golden age: Mike Weinstein could have retired years ago but he negotiated stadium deal

Mike Weinstein was there at the beginning when the city negotiated the stadium deal in 1993 that opened the door for Jacksonville to land the Jaguars.

He was in the thick of the city's successful campaign to host the Super Bowl in 2005.

And he was the lead negotiator when the city sealed the deal on a $1.4 billion stadium overhaul that will keep the Jaguars in Jacksonville for another 30 years.

It's a testament to Weinstein's longevity in operating at the highest level of city government in a dizzying array of roles that his own career has book-ended the two biggest negotiations between the city and the Jaguars. Weinstein, 75, could have retired from public life a decade ago, but he instead has notched some of his most far-reaching accomplishments during that time period while serving in the administrations of Mayor Lenny Curry and Mayor Donna Deegan.

If that's made the final stage of his career in public service resemble a rock band on a farewell tour that keeps adding more concert dates, his mix of experience and innovative thinking wins praise from people working closely with him.

"He's just a brilliant guy and extraordinarily dedicated and extraordinarily apolitical, which I love," Deegan said. "He just wants to get things done."

A year ago, Weinstein was winding down his time as CEO of the city's Kids Hope Alliance when Deegan, who had just been elected mayor , called him about joining her team at City Hall. Weinstein had not been involved with her campaign for mayor, but she had followed his career for decades and said he has a well-earned reputation for being a problem-solver.

"In all my discussions with Mike, even before I was sworn in, I was just absolutely fascinated by the way his mind works," Deegan said. "He's always thinking about different ways to wire things — how can I get from Point A to Point B in a way nobody has thought about."

Weinstein is not nearly as well-known as Deegan, but he has had his own experience in the rough and tumble of campaign politics. He ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2003 as a Republican. He then served in the state House from 2008 to 2012 before losing a bid for the state Senate.

In the nonprofit world, he has been CEO of Volunteers in Medicine in Jacksonville and president of Take Stock in Children, a statewide organization.

But his most lasting impact has been as a high-level administrator at City Hall. He was director of the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission from 1996 to 2001. He has been finance director for mayors Ed Austin, John Delaney, Lenny Curry and on acting basis for Deegan in summer 2023 before shifting into a special adviser role for the stadium negotiations.

City Council member Matt Carlucci said working behind the scenes seems to suit Weinstein.

"Mike is kind of unspectacularly competent," Carlucci said. "He's not out there waving and looking for the media."

Weinstein worked in Ed Austin administration during 1993 stadium talks

Weinstein was part of Austin's negotiating team during the rocky negotiations in 1993. At that time, the city was in the running for an NFL franchise and had to show the NFL it would bring the city-owned stadium up to the league's standards.

The city also had to renovate the stadium to keep hosting the annual Florida-Georgia game. The universities needed a bigger stadium to hold the crowd at their game than what Wayne Weaver, who was leading the effort to get the NFL franchise, wanted for NFL games. At one point, the talks broke down and Weaver left town .

"It was new to him and it was new to the city," Weinstein said. "We were very inexperienced on both sides in getting there. He (Weaver) had a lot of leverage because we were sort of an outlier and had to perform more so than the other communities we were competing against. And we shocked everybody by getting the team."

He said this time around, the city and the Jaguars had a history of negotiations. Weaver sold the team in 2011 to Shad Khan, who hired Mark Lamping as team president. Lamping has track record of working on stadium deals and construction oversight at a sports executive for three decades, starting with the St. Louis Cardinals.

He moved from baseball to football when he became CEO of New Meadowlands Stadium Company from 2008 to 2012 during the construction of MetLife Stadium, the home of the New York Giants and New York Jets. He then became president of the Jaguars and was the point person for team owner Shad Khan in stadium talks.

For good measure, Weinstein and Lamping also have been at the forefront of winning campaigns to host Super Bowls. Weinstein did it when he was president of the Jacksonville Super Bowl Host Committee that convinced the NFL to play the Super Bowl here in 2005 . Five years later, the NFL played the Super Bowl in MetLife Stadium, breaking from the usual tradition of playing the Super Bowl in warm weather locations.

Negotiations between city and Jaguars avoided showdowns

By all accounts, the negotiations lead by Lamping and Weinstein made steady progress over the past year without any take-it-or-leave it showdowns or brinkmanship.

"Clearly, both are very knowledgeable and obviously you had a law firm assisting Weinstein and a law firm assisting the Jaguars as well that were experienced in the process," said City Council member Ron Salem, who was council president during the approval of the stadium deal. "I never heard of any arguments. I never had a cross word with anybody during that whole process."

Weinstein said compared to 1993, the city had more leverage this time with the Jaguars.

"They came to the table knowing that their fans also live here and they wanted to make sure that the community felt te ultimate deal was fair," he said. "And we went in to try to protect the taxpayers and also try to keep" the team. "So we were really even going in where the first time, we weren't even."

But even with leverage in how to share the costs, the price of the renovations will eat up a big chunk of the city's budget. The deal in 1993 was for the city to pay $121 million for rebuilding the stadium. The city's agreement this time to pay $775 million for a $1.4 billion stadium renovation reflects the cost of being an NFL city as stadiums have raised the fan experience and made architectural statements of their own.

Deegan tasked Weinstein with coming up with a financial plan for how the city would pay its share of the cost. During the Curry administration, Weinstein had developed the plan in 2015 for using future revenue from a half-cent sales to help control the city's pension obligations that were choking the city's financial capacity.

Curry turned the idea into reality by getting a change in state law that enabled a voter referendum on putting the half-cent sales tax in place as soon as the existing Better Jacksonville Plan's half-cent sales tax expired by the end of 2030. In a September 2018 interview when he stepped down as the city's chief financial officer, Weinstein said the Better Jacksonville Plan could end two years earlier and allow the pension tax to kick in sooner.

But facing the steep cost for the stadium, Weinstein advised Deegan it would be better to keep the Better Jacksonville Plan intact through the end of 2030 so the city could pay cash for finishing those projects and adding others to the list while creating more borrowing capacity for the stadium. Deegan called it both simple and elegant in its approach.

"He had researched every way from Sunday the best way to fund this project," she said in May when she provided highlights of the plan to City Council. "This was, I think, absolute brilliance on his part."

At age of 75, Weinstein says he's considering next move

Weinstein joined Deegan and Lamping when they rolled out a series of town hall meetings in May to sell the proposed deal. He made light of his age during a community meeting in Mandarin when he joked that he needed binoculars to read the a screen that had the the presentation on it.

"Well, basically, the mayor is at the beginning of her (political) career," Weinstein said. "Mark is towards the end, and I'm way past mine."

But Weinstein hasn't ruled out continuing to serve in some other role.

"There's a couple of things floating around that I might do," he said the night City Council voted to approve the stadium legislation. "I'm 75, so I don't have much time left."

Birth of the Jaguars: How Jacksonville's NFL dream became reality in 1993

What to expect: Here's how stadium renovation will affect watching Jags, Florida-Georgia and Gator Bowl

Carlucci said he doesn't know what Weinstein will do next. "I'd like to keep the string attached to him so we can yank him back when we need to," he said.

He said Weinstein's involvement with the key decision points for the Jaguars is part of his legacy but doesn't totally define him.

"His impacts are really all over the city," Carlucci said. "The Jaguars are so high profile, but he's had a great career helping kids statewide and in the city, not to mention he's been finance director which touches every part of the city. He's truly one of the great people in Jacksonville's history."

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Golden age: Mike Weinstein could have retired years ago but he negotiated stadium deal