We are not the only ones
Posted by John B. Kalb - 12/30/08 @ 7:46 pm - Filed Under City Council, Local Politics
In investigating the funding sources for the last ten Class A new ballparks, it was found that the experience in Bowling Green, Ky. has been following ours in Fort Wayne: go to www.bgdailynews.com, type in “baseball stadium”, click on “archives” and review what they have gone through since early 2008. The “Hot Rods” were the Columbus, Georgia “Catfish” last year and were purchased and moved only after the city approved the $25 million bond issue to finance the ballpark in April, 2008. Note that they also have begun ONLY the public-financed ballpark portion of their downtown redevelopment - the financing for their parking garage via another public bond issue fell through - the bonds didn’t sell. Also, the private developers of a hotel, a retail center and housing, have not been able to go forward on their plans due to lack of financing. Sound familiar?? It looks like the only differences are they didn’t have an existing team or stadium and they were not able to sell bonds for the parking garage - probably because they didn’t have a Lincoln Life needing parking for their employees.
Will be looking at the other eight new ballparks as to how they were financed.
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Here is an article on Winston-Salem’s ballpark developer coming back to taxpayers for an additional $16 Million.
The comments at the bottom of the article sound just like comments about Harrison Square.
http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2008/dec/28/and-baseball-stadiums-the-winston-salem-dashs-ball/