William Larsen

New Stadium

The New Baseball Stadium had very good attendance opening night, but by the third game it had dropped to less than half that of opening night. Many say the stadium looks great. I am sure it does. It cost $35 million. The stadium at the coliseum was paid for, had great parking, good access and held nearly as many people as the new one.

Some are complaining about parking in that some walked twelve blocks. Yes this is a problem. As people walk further away, you end up with congestion at cross walks making left and right turns difficult backing up cars. I am sure this will improve slightly, but being down town, it is limited to the speed limit and stop lights further away.

People who know me would call me conservative. I drive cars until they are no longer useful. That being said, the old stadium was still very much useful. Will the new stadium attract enough business to pay for itself? I do not think so for the basic reason that the city at most could only get 7% in sales tax collections and it has to share this with the state. To collect enough sales tax revenues to pay $35 million is a lot of sales, $500 million. This will not happen in one year so add in interest and the amount of sales you need is over $1 Billion.

The new stadium I hear now employs 200 people. This helps to cover the couple of hundred who lost their jobs when the old stadium closed and the businesses that closed to make room for the new stadium. Does anyone have a tally on the net jobs from this project?

I certainly hope this new stadium will make money, but I am not holding my breath. How many things has the city invested in that actually made money?

posted by William Larsen @ 8:51 PM