New at Reason

Tim Cavanaugh | November 12, 2004

Jacob Sullum balks at D.C.'s new baseball boondoggle.

Comments

|11.12.04 @ 2:03PM|#

While these things are lousy investments for cities, this is especially lousy for DC. They've had, what, three baseball teams in their history and all three moved to greener pastures?

|11.12.04 @ 2:14PM|#

A good piece, but there are a couple of points to clarify.

Sullum draws a distinction between economic benefits and prestige. In reality, most of the economic benefits that the presence of a major league team (allegedly) brings to a city results form a boost in that city's prestige. The idea being, having a big league team will turn a medium-grade city into a World Class City, and thus, investors looking for prestige locations will find that city more appealing.

Which is important for Washington DC, because there really isn't anything else there that marks it as a prestige city, and it really doesn't have much of a profile on the international scene. Ahem.

Second, I think Sullum underestimates the ability of baseball (as opposed to football) parks to revitalize surrounding urban areas. 50,000 visitors 80+ days a year is nothing to sneeze at. Plus, I know from experience, the trick to a successful urban commercial district (not the Downtown, but neighborhood business nodes) is that they have to draw from both a strong local customer bases - people who walk a couple blocks to get there, or who travel there from slightly farther away - along with having some significant destinations that attract people from a city-wide and regional customer base. Look at the Kenmore Square/Landsdown Street district near Fenway Park - it is also a center for clubs, restaurants, and other entertainment, as well as being the local shopping district. This doesn't make a $500 investemnt worth while in cost/benefit terms, but could justify, say, $1 million for a minor league park.

|11.12.04 @ 2:16PM|#

Oh, and shifting existing entertainment dollars could be a boon for DC, if they are shifting from northern Virginia or Blockbuster Video.

|11.12.04 @ 2:19PM|#

George W Bush had a string of business failures until he took over the Texas Rangers (Washington Senators) and convinced taxpayers to buy him a new stadium. Increase in value of team was entirely due to taxpayer subsidy.

Nathan|11.12.04 @ 2:32PM|#

This doesn't make a $500 investemnt worth while in cost/benefit terms, but could justify, say, $1 million for a minor league park.

Except, of course, a new minor league park will cost you closer to $50 million. I doubt $1 million would get you an infield, let alone a stadium.

|11.12.04 @ 2:41PM|#

Yeah, but private enterprise seems more willing to foot the bill to build minor league parks. Maybe because the initial investment is so much lower, and because major league teams see them as a loss leader.

$1 million would probably clean up a brownfield site to the level that a small ballpark could be built on it.

drf|11.12.04 @ 2:54PM|#

hey joe:
something about the below raises a few questionmarks:
" In reality, most of the economic benefits that the presence of a major league team (allegedly) brings to a city results form a boost in that city's prestige. The idea being, having a big league team will turn a medium-grade city into a World Class City, and thus, investors looking for prestige locations will find that city more appealing."

citizens of detroit, cincincy, milwaukee, and oakland are relieved to hear that... :)

cleveland has gotten huge benefit, but going down euclid or carnegie from the clinic to public square still is wanting (although hugely improved). despite massive success, even cleveland is not world class. although chagrin falls/hunting valley still is :)

seriously, is st louis a world class city?

your example of around fenway is fine. around wrigley is the same, but go to the sux park - doesn't work there. sure the dynamic effect on a community is important to consider, but how much of the baseball will recoup the initial investment? the south side here shows that the stadium is not an immediate solution for that.

these chain reaction arguments usually sound too good to be true: stadium will attract businesses, expand the tax base, and voila, red ink from the stadium and team get blacked over by other businesses. people will rise up and overthrow saddam and cheer the americans... (jest having friday fun)

and where would you find a $1million brownfield site in DC? or one that's somewhat safe? oh the Anacostia Argonauts... grin.

oh - congrats to the red sox. i like how the yankees died on a good call, after making hay with the 1996 ALCS baltimore call!

happy friday
drf

Nathan|11.12.04 @ 3:10PM|#

$1 million would probably clean up a brownfield site to the level that a small ballpark could be built on it.

Ahahahahahahh! Thanks, needed that comic relief for the day. Just what, exactly, would they be remediating? Lead paint in the old stadium? You know, the one that doesn't exist? Or are they planning on turing some 100 year old brownstones into Marrion Barry Memorial Stadium? (I guess you could always make the stove the foul pole in left field)

Assuming that they're planning to build on top of an already developed are I suspect the demo costs alone will be significantly more than one million. And if remediation is needed it would be because they found something nasty in the soil (for example, it was once a parking lot and gasoline and other nasties have leached out over time). And $1 mil won't cover squat.

|11.12.04 @ 3:34PM|#

drf, I don't buy the "world class city" shtick. Just clarifying the reasoning behind these things. Same thought process as the Petronas Towers.

Even when a ballpark can revitalize an area, the cost-benefit doesn't work out. Sure, you can kickstart a district with a $500 million ballpark, but you could have used that money to pay off bonds, pave streets, provide low interest loans (or grants) to existing businesses, build a couple highway bridges...

And if you've got an area, like the South Side of Chicago, that is already in severe decline, you're going to have much more important needs. The presence of a ballpark won't turn around a severely distressed area.

Nathan, most of your post is unintelligible. Starting a little early, are we? There are plenty of brownfield sites in Washington. The part that does make sense, that $1 million won't get you a whole lot of demolition, is flat wrong. We demo abandoned apartment housed for $15-20 per. Taking advantage of economy of scale, you could do 2-5 city blocks.

$1 million won't clean up Chenobyl, but as far as remediation funds go, it's nothing to sneeze at.

|11.12.04 @ 3:39PM|#

So what if fans spend most of their money in the park. Doesn't the city still collect sales tax on those purchases?

Does the District collect income taxes? I don't know, I live in Texas. But if they do, an influx of millionaire ball players couldn't hurt.

I grant you that the economic boom promised will probably not live up to the hype, but it has to generate more revenue than that area of DC currently generates.

drf|11.12.04 @ 3:56PM|#

hey joe!
oh - you're against publically funded ball parks too? i've been missing the ball right and left today. (nothing in this note is intended to be snarky or obnoxious - it's a blond day today, even though i have no hair)
(next the pigou effect will actually have something to do with the supply side)

(blush) i had thought from the sentence, " I think Sullum underestimates the ability of baseball (as opposed to football) parks to revitalize surrounding urban areas" that you did think that it would work.

i'm not trying to be snarky here - i'm sorry i missed the point. hrumph. i've been doing that a lot recently. no excuse. just too many "flying circus" and muppets reruns (muppaphone is the best one)

whoops. i misread what you were saying. but what did you think my schtick for world class was? none of those towns are by a long shot. i'da named east coast cities, but they'd tend to snif if it were their town... :)

i have to confess, then, i musta had some whiskey in my glass of milk this afternoon after recess. do you think the publically funded baseball is a good idea?

cheers,
drf

|11.12.04 @ 4:26PM|#

"Does the District collect income taxes?"

It certainly does, at a high rate, and with a vengeance.

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict doom for the franchise, unless the team manages to become seriously competitive in a few years. DC fans just do not stand behind losing teams.

|11.12.04 @ 4:49PM|#

My point, drf, was that the benefits of a stadium are not worth nine digits of public money.

BTW, I don't buy the idea that professional sports can make a city a "world class city." It's a corrolation/causation fallacy. Boston isn't a world class city because of the Red Sox; Boston has a first rate team because it's a world class city. I was just clarifying the thinking of those who do buy this line of thought.

Nathan|11.12.04 @ 5:02PM|#

Nathan, most of your post is unintelligible. Starting a little early, are we? There are plenty of brownfield sites in Washington.

Yes, are these the same brownfield sites that you argued were keeping the poor man down a week ago? The ones full of lead paint and lead pipes, whose remediation costs were so large the poor living there just keep getting poorer (which was your excuse for city gov'ts to spend, spend, spend)? That is what I was referring to.

that $1 million won't get you a whole lot of demolition, is flat wrong. We demo abandoned apartment housed for $15-20 per. Taking advantage of economy of scale, you could do 2-5 city blocks.

In DC? Fat chance. Plus, isn't the Demo work the bailiwick of the developer, not the gov't (for privately built structures)?

$1 million won't clean up Chenobyl, but as far as remediation funds go, it's nothing to sneeze at.

For a site large enough to hold a baseball stadium (even a small one) and the associated infrastructure that is contaminated enough to require remediation it most certainly is an amount to sneeze at. Its damn near a rounding error.

Look, face facts. You pulled the "oh, the gov't could spend a cool mil on a minor league park" out of your ass, and now you're trying to justify it. Land costs in DC, even the less than seller parts, are too high to build anything of that size on the cheap. Even if DC found private funding for the stadium simply such things like the paperwork needed to get the initiative moving will cost the District more than one million. There's a reason the DC area has 3 minor league teams and they're all situated well outside of the District.

drf|11.12.04 @ 5:14PM|#

hey joe!

:)

stadia sure aren't!

(and despite the orchestra, the clinic, a not bad art museum, AND the tribe, cleveland isn't world class... )

but chicago is. sort of.

remember from below: two beers!

cheers,
drf

|11.12.04 @ 10:24PM|#

Nathan, you really don't know shit about development, do you?

Nothing you're saying about lead pipes (lead pipes?) has any bearing on the previous thread, or on this one. Seriously, lead pipes? WTF are you talking about?

Construction and demo costs are pretty similar in the DC area as they are in eastern Massachusetts, so yes, the cost comparison is roughly valid.

Then you halfway make some idiotic points about the cost of demolition being higher if done by a private developer than by the government. Sure you don't want to think that through a little more?

"a site big enough to hold a baseball stadium" can be a single city block. Get your spoiled suburban head out of your ass - not every stadium, espcially a minor league park, needs to be surrounded by acres of parking. Fenway is a city block, and that's a major league stadium.

And I never suggested that $1 million would build a ballpark, dipshit. I said it could clean up the site to allow for construction. If you actually knew anything about the topic, you'd understand what a difference a government-cleaned and -certified brownfield site can be to a private developer, who's more afraid of unforeseen cleanup costs than just about anything else.

Learn to read, learn something about the subject, then talk to me again about development in urban areas, son.

|11.13.04 @ 5:08PM|#

Comrade joe, you demonstrate frequently that your education around urban planning is yet incomplete. Perhaps I missed your ascension to Final Arbiter of All Issues Concerning Communal Living. Nathan has made weird arguments, but remember Boston is world-class primarily in the minds of Bostonians. Today it is the Hub of what, exactly?

Counter-snarking aside, many (or most) neighbors will see 50K people 80 times a year a big noisy traffic jam. Those with alleregies/asthma may actually then have something to sneeze at. If patrons are well-provided for in the new structure, so the team can capture the secondary revenue, they'll have less incentive to wander down the block aiding resuscitation of the district. Wrigley and Fenway are pre-motorcar, historically endowed with nearby nodes. Can you forsee a new stadium endorsed without acres of parking and access roads?

Tangentially, has anyone proposed ending the chain of liability in brownfield cases? The state need not pay for the cleanup if it guarantees the developer held harmless for the effects of previous owners' stink. Either way, the public eats the cost of past pollution, but feeding it to them by legal fiat avoids taxation and bureaucracy.

|11.13.04 @ 9:55PM|#

I have no idea what the "Final Arbiter" comment is about, but thanks. If my mom throws a party, I'll invite yor.

"Today it is the Hub of what, exactly?"

Education (the two best colleges in the western hemisphere, or two of the top 3-4, depending on how you count), medicine, biotech, and dairy-based fish stews.

Why do you assume everyone has to drive to the ballgame? One of the great benefits to locating balllparks in the city is the public transit access. I wouldn't drive to Fenway if you held a gun to my head.

"If patrons are well-provided for in the new structure, so the team can capture the secondary revenue, they'll have less incentive to wander down the block aiding resuscitation of the district." If the planning is done right, the patrons (or a good portion anyway) will WANT to wander around and patronize the businesses, before and after, because hanging out in the district will be a fun thing to do. Grabbing a beer here, a sausage there, is the urban-stadium equivalent of tailgating.

"Can you forsee a new stadium endorsed without acres of parking and access roads?" I continue to hope for the best. Providing the automobile access of, say, Gillette Stadium to a central city site would eliminate the possibility of the stadium district being a fun place to be.

Tangentially, Masschusetts passed a bill holding new owners harmless in the late 1990s. It's done a world of good.

drf|11.14.04 @ 2:23PM|#

"Education (the two best colleges in the western hemisphere, or two of the top 3-4, depending on how you count), medicine, biotech, and dairy-based fish stews."

i guess the people at U of C are chopped liver...

those of us outside of new england use other methods.

does this mean that you all will quit your whining now that the sox (the third unluckiest, depending on how you measure) have won? the cubbies last made the series in 45. the whitesox in 59. getting a chance to play is better than not being there at all.

see above comments about northeast :)

cheerio (heiter ohne zu verletzen)

|11.14.04 @ 6:59PM|#

I may not assume everyone drives to the ballgame, but I expect the business interests, politicians, and their planners will so assume. People who can afford a pro game, and additional carousing time, are more likely to live in the suburbs and expect to drive (at least to the park-and-ride). This stereotype is probably more accurate in DC/LA/Big D, not so much in Boston.

How about if the city blew the money hyping college sports instead? My own guesses: no "world class" prestige, not enough games in the season.

|11.15.04 @ 11:17AM|#

"World Class" city, "prestige", etc. . .

(I haven't read all the comments, but) Should proponents of public-funded parks use these arguments? Would they help? It may put a city on the map to Sportcenter viewers, but who else cares?

Of course, if proponents conclude "added prestige will add jobs", then we fall into the same argument. Williams should just say "because I want one"

|11.19.04 @ 12:26AM|#

DC resident here, trying to address as much as I skimmed above as possible and toss in my own opinion... If the MCI Center in DC's Chinatown is any indication, the baseball stadium could "revitalize" the neighborhood in which they are planning to put it, which is the Navy Yard, currently home to some seedy gay clubs, a giant warehouse raver/gay (depending on the night) danceclub, DC's car inspection station, a 7-11, some fast-food restaurants, a by-the-hour hotel, urban blight... that's about it. MCI Center takes up 2 blocks I think and has underground parking as well as a Metro stop. There's also a Metro stop right by the proposed ballpark site. DC Chinatown is another world now from what it was prior to MCI Center - full of chain restaurants (and admittedly some really good non-chain restaurants) and chain shops, even a Hooters... So anyway, I figure the ballpark could do for Navy Yard what MCI Center did for Chinatown, especially if it hosts more than just ballgames, but... well, one of my favorite clubs that used to be in the Navy Yard area is now an office building - DC nightlife hasn't been the same since - and I have a soft spot for what's left there, seedy as it is, and I hate to see it be replaced by TGI Friday and Gap, as if we didn't have plenty of those around already. Running out existing businesses, and making DC businesses foot the bill to make that neighborhood more palatable to suburbanites - it seems just plain wrong to me. Lastly - I think I saw someone above mention the ballplayers bringing income tax revenue to the District. Not a chance - they will live across the river in Virginia where taxes are low(er). I'll be (happily) surprised if we ever get a commuter tax to make them help pay for the roads, police, firemen, etc. they take advantage of while here for work every weekday. DC taxes are so high in part due to that and in part due to the untaxable federal gov't taking up so much space (admittedly though I figure even without voting representation we get at least our fair share of federal pork). But I'm digressing...