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They have made their offer slightly more palatable by keeping the team in Pawtucket and making the stadium publicly owned. But it still is not good enough.
I'm not sure what the advantage would be to having a publicly-owned stadium. The team would be free to leave, and the City or State gets stuck with a new but empty stadium. See how that worked out for Old Orchard Beach (although that was built as publicly-financed/privately owned, but became publicly owned because the team's owner defaulted).
FWIW, my the "Keep the PawSox in Pawtucket" Facebook group has changed its name to "Keep the PawSox at McCoy."
They have made their offer slightly more palatable by keeping the team in Pawtucket and making the stadium publicly owned. But it still is not good enough.
They have not said how much they want the taxpayers to pay. That's always a bad sign.
Want to get taxpayer buy-in, Larry? Since this is all about selling hotdogs and overpriced beer, you need to take a hit on admissions. There is palpable fear amongst families that admissions prices will get jacked for that shiny new taxpayer financed stadium. If Rhode Islanders own the stadium, then give each Rhode Islander a quota of tickets on a first-come, first-served basis. That will pack them in, and you'll get them on the concessions anyway. Bake it into the deal. Go ahead and charge for tickets to out-of-state residents; they won't be the ones who fund and build the stadium.
And if this deal does go through, the state should also require a $$$ set-aside from each concession sale and out-of-state ticket sale, to put into escrow in case the team decides to walk before the useful life of the stadium is up, much like the team threatened to do at McCoy.
I see it as a mixed bag. For starters, the Tidewater location is a joke. Nix it from the get go. There's VERY little improvement over the existing location.
I like the Apex site. It's a riverfront location on Main St. within spitting distance from the core of the city. I think it's a perfect spot for a stadium. There's no question about the potential. You have potential for public space along the river next to the park. You have the potential for businesses to open up shop in many of the vacant storefronts along main street due to the increased foot traffic. I trust that ownership could find a way to utilize it for non-baseball activities (i.e. concerts, festivals, outdoor hockey/baskeball, etc.) to maximize usage as well. There's also potential for a stadium to spark other types of development (residential, office, mixed-use, etc.).
Of course, whether that potential is realized depends on a lot of "IFs"- the big one being "If it's done right." And public funding doesn't often equal "done right." Pawtucket (and RI) should push for more investment from the ownership group. Private investment often means a better long-term commitment from the ownership group (see: Bob Kraft- Foxboro) since simply pulling out would mean actual losses. That's why they don't want to do it. You're almost certain to see more investment in the area if the ownership group has more at stake. They'll want to make it a destination. Like a miniature version of what they have at Fenway.
RI needs to push back more. And they need to ignore the Worcester stuff. Worcester won't happen. Worcester officials will continue to say "we'll take them!" because it looks like they're advocating for their community. Larry and the ownership group will continue to say, "we'll definitely consider Worcester!" because it puts pressure on Pawtucket and RI to get something done so they don't lose out. The Worcester area has 1/2 the population base that the Providence area has, and they have a horrible history of minor league sporting attendance. AAA baseball is a good draw, but it won't be more successful than even the status quo in Pawtucket.
Here's a lengthy, but decent read (it's a thesis paper) on the benefits of minor league stadiums to development (emphasis on "if done right."): https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/wilch...200912_mhp.pdf . Pawtucket has great industrial bones. It would be awesome if they could find a site where some existing infrastructure (factory/warehouse/mill) could be incorporated into the structure the same way that Riverwalk Stadium (heavily featured in that thesis), or Petco Park and Camden Yards did.
Location: Earth, a nice neighborhood in the Milky Way
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Originally Posted by mp775
I'm not sure what the advantage would be to having a publicly-owned stadium. The team would be free to leave, and the City or State gets stuck with a new but empty stadium. See how that worked out for Old Orchard Beach (although that was built as publicly-financed/privately owned, but became publicly owned because the team's owner defaulted).
I am against any public financing of a new ballpark for millionaire team owners.
Is a publicly owned stadium better than the public giving them a stadium? I do think it is slightly better. The threat of them leaving and the state getting stuck with the stadium is real; they've proved by trying to get out of their contract at McCoy back when they proposed a PVD stadium. That's why I say there has to be a way to hedge against that. Make them escrow a portion of earnings, which they forfeit if they don't stay/keep the doors open for the expected life of the stadium. Make them come up with a surety bond with the State named as the payee in the event the team tries to break the deal. Put some teeth into it if you're going to have taxpayers fund it.
I don't hate the replication of the dimensions- there's practical reasoning for that (ease the transition to Fenway for developing players).
The bigger issue I see in that article is that the stadium seems to give absolutely no thought to its surroundings. Instead of taking advantage of the river frontage and incorporating a public space or promenade to highlight that asset (and you know, make the space useful for everyone 24/7), they completely ignore it and include a surface parking lot and driveway. They also place the deadest space (the towering blank left-field wall) along Main St. The whole thing should be rotated so that the most active parts of the structure- the box office, entrances to seats in the bowl, and potential retail and dining should be right up on the street. These spaces can be active year-round (at least the box office) and help activate the area. As of now, they face the surface lot tucked away in the back of the stadium. Home plate should be right at the intersection of Main and Broadway. The Green Monster at Fenway is the biggest dead space on Lansdowne Street (which is a great street year-round) and that's accounting for the fact that it has seating on top and a bar underneath. It's not something that should be duplicated on Main St. in Pawtucket.
You hit some of the reasons I hate it (and the field dimensions isn't one of them). It gives absolutely no regard to its surroundings except the one frontage they really care about: I-95. The siting of the stadium in the rendering is the perfect allegory for the whole process. Other people pass through Pawtucket every day on the monstrosity that severed downtown decades ago, we want to do something for them, and we will - now literally - let you look at our backside after we let you pay for it. The garage (I assume the new building on the north side of School Street - the real School Street, not the Darlington Braves bingo hall where the School Street label was misplaced) is even well sited with convenient access back onto I-95 so no fan ever has to actually enter downtown Pawtucket or look at the hideous backside of the Monster. The riverfront access they're promising is just a roadway accessing the surface lot, which is most certainly for VIPs and players. And I realize it's just a rendering, but to omit the Pitcher-Goff mansion and replace it with some shrubs is abhorrent. May as well just plop a big illuminated Citgo billboard on the property!
Aside from actual aesthetic and siting issues, I also hate it for the very idea. By proposing a replica Fenway, the owners are showing that they just see Pawtucket and Rhode Island as a lesser extension of Boston - or worse, a blank slate to be covered over by Boston. We are not Boston. We have our own history here; we don't need a half-assed copy of someone else's history plopped in the most prominent location in our city.
I'm also guessing that part of the plan is to give the Red Sox leverage for a new stadium of their own. People crying about losing historic Fenway? Just go to our replica down the road!
I didn't realize this before - The Portland Sea Dogs already play in a replica Fenway, and the Red Sox spring training park is a replica Fenway. Way to save on the architectural costs!
more than 1,200 readers (and counting) have answered a providence-journal.com poll asking if taxpayers should subsidize a new stadium for the Pawtucket Red Sox. Seventy percent of the 1,211 Rhode Islanders who had taken the poll as of Thursday afternoon didn’t support a public subsidy.
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