I'm as big a champion of downtown redevelopment as anyone, but I hope the proposal for a downtown baseball stadium gets a thorough, serious debate. It seems like a big, costly risk to me. Proponents will point to examples where stadiums turned downtowns around, as in Dayton. But skeptics can point to plenty of evidence to the contrary, as in this 11-year-old warning to Buckeyes about the rush to build stadiums. Note the reference to Fort Wayne in the article:
Urban policy analysts at Indiana University and Wright State University reached similar conclusions in a study of the potential economic impact of minor league baseball in Fort Wayne, Indiana. At best, the study estimated a team would generate $7.2 million annually in economic impact, but almost three-quarters of that spending would be money shifted from other industries within the region. Overall, the team would have generated new growth of less than one-half of one percent for the entire local economy.
We've had minor league baseball for a few years now, so a place to start would be to assess -- honestly, with no inflated figures -- what the Wizards have meant to the local economy. And don't forget that relocating the stadium would just be moving whatever benefit there is to another location. As much as it would help downtown, it's likely to hurt just that much in the areas around the current stadium.
Those of us who hope for a vital downtown should think some more about which incentives are defensible and which ones go a step too far. It's accepted wisdom that the public sector needs to push things along a certain way, but that at some point the private sector has to see a profit potential and get on board. My gut instinct tells me this is a step too far.
MORE: Fort Wayne Indiana etc. has the same doubts.
UPDATE: Here's a report of yesterday's meeting.
