This morning, freelance writer George Meyer penned an op-ed that made the case for a new Rays stadium in Palmetto Beach - the blighted area of East Tampa/Ybor City.
The first warning sign that the column should be taken not just with a grain, but a whole spoonful of salt, is that Meyer discloses he's been buying up Palmetto Beach rentals for 12 years and would stand to profit if a new stadium were built in the middle of the blight.
The second warning sign comes when he contends a site "fewer than five minutes from downtown Tampa" would solve the team's attendance problems. Of course, one of the knocks on Tropicana Field, a mere two minutes from Downtown St. Pete, is that it's too far from the city's core to provide any real impact.
Then, there's the fact that Meyer obviously didn't learn any lessons from the Trop. Poor St. Pete residents were displaced from their blighted (but historic) neighborhood amid promises of better jobs and new development. But those promises went unfulfilled and there's still a lot of bitterness on St. Pete's Southside.
Meyer also doesn't seem to be paying attention to what's going on in Miami, where one of the many excuses for the disappointing first season at Marlins Park is its location in terrible neighborhood.
As for Meyer's "at least land is cheap in Palmetto Beach" argument, remember that land will be cheap just about anywhere in Tampa Bay. But this has never been about finding land for a new stadium....it's been about finding funding.
Meyer claims that the ingress/egress in Ybor would be great. But it's great right now at Tropicana Field too. And if you think people hate crossing west on the Howard Frankland Bridge at rush hour, you should try going anywhere near "Dysfunction Junction," a.k.a. the I-275/I-4 interchange.
To be perfectly honest, workers leaving the region's corporate hub, Westshore, could get to downtown St. Pete faster than they could get to Ybor many nights.
Now, before we dismiss Meyer's op-ed as just another hair-brained chapter in the Stadium Saga (he even seems to confuse high-speed rail and light rail), he manages to make two good points:
- Without new transit options, the Rays may never succeed at the turnstiles. I've suggested in the past that the team could piggyback a transit referendum since their success relies on Tampa Bay breaking its dependence on driving everywhere. But so far, nobody is talking about a half-billion dollar stadium and billion-dollar rail project in the same sentence.
- The value of Downtown Tampa land seems to be surging right now and it may not need invigorating from a baseball stadium. Sure, it would be nice to walk out the door from your skyscraper apartment to a game, but the lack of baseball (and hockey this season, for what it's worth) doesn't seem to be stopping young adults from flocking to the city's new high-rises.
"...nobody is talking about a half-billion dollar stadium and billion-dollar rail project in the same sentence..."
ReplyDeleteCan't talk about -billions- that aren't available from the feds or state, "piggybacking" would double the mistake made in Miami.
LOL, calm down "anonymous FoxNews loyalist! "Nobody is talking about" anything that's going to take money out of your pockets, or food off your table! "A half billion dollar stadium and billion dollar rail project" is an extreme assumption compared to reality, I know it, and more importantly, they know it. Besides, to your Miami reference, they built a overpriced park, with no business name for the park to help back them financially, and then put it the middle of the hood just like this article is referencing. No one besides the locals of the area wants to be off the beaten path in or around Ybor 10 pm at night with there kids, and we should find it hard to believe the Rays will make the same mistake...
ReplyDeleteI guess it was stadium news, but back to what anonymous commented, with location. Though everyone is to blind to realize that it's a Channelside or bust situation, maybe we should be more focused on the dollar figures of how it's going to work there(?)!
Beazy
If Beazy is right, could we finally start talking about what it would take financially to build a stadium at Channel side? Like the cost to the county, how long it will take for the county to start making a profit, can Stu get Vinink with others to put more in the pot to bare more of the burden, what about saving money on building the stadium with a canvas retractable roof opposed to a 200k medal one, and can they maybe save by bringing stuff like the jumbotron seats office equipment outfield wall foul polls, etc. from the Trop there, like when you a person moves into a new house, they normally fill it w/ the same stuff from there old house?
ReplyDeleteIf Beazy is right, we're still waiting on someone to offer up a giant pot of money to pay for it.
ReplyDeleteThe Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce released a study of what it would take to pay for a Downtown Tampa stadium and it involved a LOT of taxpayer funding: http://shadowofthestadium.blogspot.com/2012/11/fallout-from-rays-stadium-finance-study.html
In terms of your question about how long it would take the county to profit...it is not easy to find economists who believe municipalities ever profit from sports stadiums. The City of St. Pete would tell you the profit on their deal only comes in the last 10-12 years of its 30-year deal with the team...and the team is fighting to leave during those 10-12 years.
Noah, over the last few days, I have spent several hours reading the thoughtful posts you have presented here. Your presentation here reflects a lot of work and a lot of opinion. Since you bill yourself as an investigative journalist, I want to issue you a challenge while pointing out a major hole in your investigation. You claim, "it is not easy to find economists who believe municipalities ever profit from sports stadiums." That statement is incorrect, and absurdly so. It reflects a lack of investigation on your part. The real truth is that there are two competing schools of economic thought. The myth you report is one promogulated by the far smaller group of economists who do not favor public investment in sports stadia. You repeat the myth without foundation. There are tens of thousands of economists who believe that there are public investments in sports related projects which create net positive returns. To find some, you might start with the more than 600 studies performed since 1980 which concluded that public investment in sports stadia yields positive returns. More than 2000 economists had imput in these studies. You might also investigate the court testimony of econmomists in various sports venue cases. Importantly, every time the Federal Courts have considered the question you assume away, they come to the opposite conclusion you do. Further, you might just randomly call some college Economics departments and ask to speak with professors with differing viewpoints. If you do this investigation, I'm betting you will find what I know to be true - the "anti-stadium" group are mostly practioners of junk science, and they are a minority of professional eonomists. That said, each individual study or claim must be measured for validity. So it might be a good idea to use the four studies of the Rays' economic impact that were done back in 2008/09.
DeleteRick, appreciate the input. I assure you my research is more thorough than a passing glance at the pro-subsidy argument, but if you have any specific links you'd like to point me in the direction of, I'd be happy to read.
DeleteI could go into depth about why there were issues with the 2008/2009 study, but as I've said before - if those numbers are true, the Rays' buyout of their current contract will quickly inflate the $500-600 million price of a new stadium.
What about the idea of added tax revenue from hotels and rental cars in Hillsborough, and if were right and the Rays could save by using a canvas-like roof, and stuff from the Trop, the Rays kick-in a lil' more, etc., aren't we finally helping close the financial gap through better ideas opposed to just saying "it wouldn't work"? Also, give or take using county funded taxes, I find it hard to believe Hillsborough county wouldn't profit immensely with an extra 10k-15k more or so people coming to downtown Tampa from places like Pasco, Polk, Citrus, Marion, Orange co., etc., 81 days a year for the next 100 years, sending at least $20-$100 a person each time (not including spending on dinner, gas, cigarettes, etc. in the county), NOT including playoffs, a All-Star game or 2, other events other then baseball games, and times that people would come to Channelside just to come hang out at the other places like the Aquarium because they went to a game once and seen other stuff to do other days. Besides, maybe I'm misreading things, but if it wasn't "profitable", wouldn't St. Pete be trying to give up the Rays, and Tampa wouldn't be trying to get'em, OR would there even be Major League baseball(?), or maybe yinz haven't done enough research, and just want to repeat what everyone else is saying?!
ReplyDeleteBeazy
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ReplyDeleteThanks for your confidence in my research, Beazy!
ReplyDeleteOne concept you seem to miss is that St. Pete paid most of the costs already associated with getting a baseball team there for 30 years....it's now trying to ensure the team plays there for the duration of the contract so it can re-coup the investment.
I'd also point out your fuzzy math - if 20k people spent $50 each game, that's $81M in spending moving from St. Pete to Tampa each season. That's $5.7M in sales tax collected, most of which goes to the state. So not sure how you think the county would "profit immensely."
LOL, you took 2 piece out of a pie of dozens of pieces. There is many more revenues then just the Rays mortgage, and ticket sales at the gate at the NEW Trop. I guess I see things as a whole. It's like yah, a car dealership might only sell 50 cars a month, but they profit from wholesaling used cars at the auction, the service department makes profit, profits from finance selling warranties and bumping interest rates on customers car loans, etc.. Or how the Rays aren't considered as one of best teams in baseball because they don't over spend on high profile players, nor have won a WS or been to more then 1, BUT they have the 3rd best record in the Majors over the last 5 years, because of over ways of winning like great defense, having shut down bullpen, or moving runners in scoring in scoring position...
ReplyDeleteTalking about spending 3-4-500 million should be worth a discussion of the WHOLE pie Hillsborough county would embrace with having an extra 5-10-15k people coming from outside of the county to spend money inside there county 81 days a year for the next century that's NOT happening now. Plus, let's not forget about the extra $50-$100 million Tampa would have injected into it's economy from a All-Star game that there guaranteed not to receive if the Rays stay in St. Pete or move to another city or if it was up to you...
I would just like to read a report about "the whole pie", before thinking differently...
Beazy
Beazy, I believe this is the "whole pie" report you are looking for?
Deletehttp://shadowofthestadium.blogspot.com/2012/11/chamber-of-commerce-study-new-stadium.html
Well, it was an article outlining the "crust of the pie". It's like health and wealth in this country, it's NOT that we all can't achieve the same, it's the lack of knowledge that limits people, "we all know fruits and vegetables are good for you, BUT until we do our research on the benefits only because we got sick, we're still see it as something we should do but don't do while continuing to eat media driven cheap foods that leads us to obesity and diseases.". Or to to say it in a simpler form, people fear and ignore what they don't truly understand, which is where someone like you (or someone you know) could capitalize as a journalist in Tampa Bay...
ReplyDeleteThe article outlined hypotheticals in used taxes, and the cost of a stadium like the Marlins. Though the Marlins aren't the Rays. The Rays aren't trying to build a overpriced stadium in Temple Terrace, they have the opportunity to build a cost effective park in what seems to be poised as the center of west central Florida's entertainment hub...
Instead of thinking of it as Hillsborough giving the Rays 100-200 mill. of Tommy-the-Taxpayers money to build something, and hope there able to make payment for the next 30 years like a bank, we have to think of it like when a big factory moves into a small town that gives the factory huge tax breaks to do so. What if we knew through "investigating" that the Rays could build a ballpark for around the same price as PNC Park ($284 mill in 12' dollars), plus the cost of a roof, then subtract the cost from bringing a lot of the Trop's stuff (video screens, seats, foul poles, etc.)(?). What if we knew Hillsborough's unemployment rate would drop, and it's GDP went up? What if we knew Vinik's group was going to kick in a large portion. What if we knew after only 15-25 years of the 100 or so years of existence, and hosting an MLB All-Star game (along with other venues) that the Rays could have there mortgage paid off? What if? Well, we the people might not ever know until it happens, but until then I guess we'll have to keep reading why it won't...
Beazy
Do you think the Rays have looked into construction prices and whether a $284M stadium is possible instead of letting everyone fret about how to pay for a new stadium?
ReplyDeleteYou're also assuming a lot about Hillsborough's unemployment rate. If it shoots up because of a stadium, it stands to reason Pinellas' unemployment rate would suffer.
ReplyDeleteEither or, it's all speculation between Rays fans, and scared local tax payers until someone(s) presents solid facts though good journalist work...
ReplyDelete"The Shadow of Stadium Speculation"
ReplyDelete